Why We Need Research Universities, by Bob Samuels (Huffington Post 2/22/2010)

Currently, research universities are under attack from all sides. States are decreasing their funding for public universities, and due to the global financial meltdown, private universities have seen their endowments reduced. More importantly, the general public is questioning the value of these institutions; in fact, a recent poll found that the public feels that universities and colleges are being run like businesses, and the result is that the costs are going up, but the quality is going down. Yet, I will argue here that research universities are essential to our economy and our democracy; unfortunately, these schools have done a very poor job telling the general public why they should be supported.  Link to rest of article at Huffington Post