[j7ake]

Isn’t VC funds structured such a way that one or two startups make it while 90 percent fail?

University outputs seem to be comparable in this sense.

The patent for Gatorade alone has brought in probably 100 million to U of Florida.

[cyrksoft]

That might be the case. But universities are not startups.

In one of the universities I worked at they had a four-year long History undergraduate degree. Between 5 and 10 students chose it each year (the entire university has around 5,000 students, give or take). That means that there are around 30 students combined. For these 30 students, there were more than 40 full time academics! There are more professors than students. All this is possible because they had 2,000 undergraduate business students, and 1,000 business postgraduate students paying 3x or 4x what a History student paid in tuition fees. I know this might be an extreme case, but it is not that rare. You cannot run a sustainable business like that. Of course History professors made a lot less than their business counterparts, and they complained a lot.

[j7ake]

Universities are not startups but the basic research since WW2 has enabled the startup culture that is so vibrant today in California and Boston.

The success of this basic research feeds back into society with substantially increased tax revenue and reputation to attract the best minds in the world.

[cyrksoft]

> The success of this basic research feeds back into society with substantially increased tax revenue and reputation to attract the best minds in the world.

I would love to see a source on that, particularly the tax revenue increase and return on investment.

I think it is wrong to fund so many researchers that contribute almost nothing to society with tax payers money. Why force minimum wage workers to give part of their income for academics to sit around and think about something that will probably have zero to no impact, while risking nothing. Let's face it, most academics accomplish nothing and have no impact whatsoever with their research. And I am saying this as an Econ researcher. I believe I contributed nothing to research in Economics while working in academia for 30 years. If I had any contribution whatsoever, it was either by teaching or by my consulting jobs.