I must wonder. Are Universities subject to healthy market forces? Are there forces in play which ensure that Universities are opperating with the greatest possible utility to the public?
These are questions likely worth exploring with resourcefullness.
One particular question which burns in my mind is whether or not we should end public funding directly to the universities. I wonder if public funding is contributing to structures which are not providing the utility we might expect from our educational institutions. We might assess whether or not our expectations of our universities meet our needs or desires while we’re at it.
If the dollars were in the hands of the consumers, who according to economic theory will act in their own best self interests, if the revenue stream were solely in the hands of the student, then conceivably natural free market forces would tend toward creation of the most efficient school providing the most utility to those they are serving, the student.
But, Universities are not solely institutions of teaching. They also provide invaluable research which, presumably, lives in the public domain; of course, in practice, this may not have happened quite to the extent we might expect or desire. Likely, given the choice, taxpayers would prefer that they are getting a return on their tax dollars in the form of public knowledge, rather than paying for intellectual property for a private firm.
Universities are also gathering grounds for the academic and scientific and philosophical and creative (amongst other) communities.
Perhaps public dollars are necessary to maintain that utility which universities provide beyond the environment for students to learn; in any case, we need to wonder what we might lose given the loss of social support in the form of public funds. We might assess the utility that results from our public funds.
Is it possible to seperate those functions of the university which result from public & social investment from those which would become more efficient subject to a purer free market? Are these functions necessarily integrated? Are there any aspects of the university which would function in a pure free market or does effective function depend entirely upon the school being more of a publicly provisioned institution?
