[CalRobert]

The universities are one of the biggest problems in all of this. They mostly exist to siphon funds away from the government and individuals (via subsidized loans) and spend lavish amounts on administration, all while claiming they can't come up with $34,000 a year for a professor. Let them rot. They've somehow convinced people their product is worth more than an individual's own drive in learning something, and artificially slow education.

[pakled_engineer]

President of my university made $600k per year, sold off endowment land for private condo development at a bargain price (surprise, development corp was a gov crony corp) then spent the money on lavish dorms and frats only foreign students could afford. He also chaired a 2 billion research gov public grant fund where money was used for patenting research and (surprise) sold them to megacorps that were government cronies. He then claimed we had no money and had to jack tuition, and allow in banks to shill credit cards to students (surprise, he used to be on that bank's directors board).

The loser is the student who has to pay ever increasing fees to afford these giant salaries and siphoning of endowment to cronies.

[lutorm]

Usually there is no funds transfer between university research and undergraduate education. Whatever issues you have with the value of undergraduate education doesn't really have any bearing on their function as research institutions.