This morning the President of Princeton University, Christopher Eisgruber, published his defense of Federal funding for research universities in The Atlantic: The Cost of the Government’s attack on Colombia. What are his arguments?
Eisgruber claims that the success of the American University system hinged on two factors. First, “the development of strong principles of academic freedom” before World War Two fostered scientific progress through competition over ideas. Second, Federal funding of research universities after World War Two fueled academic progress.
I see no reason to challenge Eisgruber’s first claim, in principle.
Eisgruber’s second claim has no rational or moral basis. Government subsidies may improve the supply of a good in cases where private sector systematically underfunds its’ production. The economic explanation for this problem is that some goods are “public goods”. There are some goods that automatically benefit everybody once they are provided to only one or a few people. Two classic examples of public goods are national defense and radio broadcasts. If some people pay for defending the borders of a nation, the free riders who don’t pay still benefit. If some people pay for radio broadcasts, the free riders who tune in at no charge still benefit. Collectively, we would all be better off if everybody chipped in. However, free rider problems lead to under-financing and under-supply of public goods. Taxation forces free riders to pay for public goods, provided that the government efficiently spends this money in the provision of these goods.
There are two obvious questions in this debate over public funding for universities. First, is university research really a public good? Second, does Federal funding fund the right amount of university research, if we assume that it is a public good?
Research in STEM fields attract private funding because this type of research pays. All that is needed to prevent free riding on the research of physicists, engineers, or chemists is the application of patent law. Of course, universities also teach students. But students in STEM fields can afford to pay the necessary costs of their education.
Students in law, business, and economics programs can also afford the necessary costs of their education. What about research in these fields? As an economist, I can state with complete confidence that the marginal value of econ research is less than zero. Economics researchers in private and public universities churn out thousands of articles every year, published in hundreds of academic journals. Yet, there hasn’t been a major breakthrough in economic science in over 50 years. Economists do make minor refinements of existing theoretical models, update empirical studies with new data. However, if even 5% of new economics articles contained important new insights it would be necessary to heavily revise all economics textbooks each year.
Economics textbooks have not changed all that much over the past fifty years- because economic theory has not changed all that much over the past 50 years. Contemporary economists do publish some worthwhile studies. However, state and Federal funding simply reduces the “signal to noise ratio” by making it harder to find the few new worthwhile studies amidst the growing mass of worthless publications.
I can’t speak to the current net value of research in law, business, or political science. However, the same principles apply. People will invest private funds in research that is expected to yield practical-patentable benefits. Many professors at Liberal Arts teaching colleges conduct research with outside grants or without any funding. Public funding at the “flagship state universities” must have hit diminishing returns by now. If the marginal benefits of research in the aforesaid fields hasn’t fallen below marginal costs by now, they will soon. It is also the case that some private research universities, like Eisgruber’s Princeton, have endowments in the tens of billions of dollars.
Eisgruber admits that Federal funding of research universities comes with the risk of there being political strings attached, but he fails to mention the severe political and ideological biases that exist among current college faculty. Most modern colleges are propaganda mills. What is worse, though, is that Marxists have gained influence over a number of fields in social sciences and humanities. Economists universally reject Marxism because it is logically incoherent empirically falsified nonsense. If Marxists were only promoting harmless myths then this issue would not be all that important. The truth is that the Marxist movement of the 20th century created most of the worst totalitarian regimes in history, and not by accident.
Eisgruber’s belief in free competition over ideas among academics is admirable, but also irrelevant to contemporary higher ed. Marxists in fields like Sociology, History, or Gender Studies have failed to engage economists in a debate over the “merits” of Marxian analysis. Competition over very fine points of economic theory continues among economists. Many other academics continue to disseminate ideas that aren’t merely wrong, but are dangerous.
US Taxpayers are being forced to financially support the dissemination of left-wing propaganda by university professors, much of which is Neo-Marxist. Most Americans oppose Marxism, but haven’t opposed state and Federal funding of Marxist professors. The anti-Jewish protests at Columbia has triggered a backlash against “research” universities. Public funding of educational institutions that target any single religious or ethnic group is immoral. However, public funding of one partisan political agenda, or of one ideological movement, is equally immoral.
We should also note that there has been an enormous increase in American college bureaucracies over the past several decades. Colleges provided better education at lower tuition costs prior to the recent bureaucratic expansion.
Modern colleges are over-funded, and are spending money in ways that are insidious. The solution to these problems isn’t to merely cut public funding at Columbia University. Public funding of University research and education is neither necessary on practical economic grounds nor defensible on moral grounds. It should be cut 100%.
[Originally published at On the Other Hand...]
