Bret Devereaux

Of course there are no completely „free“ systems i.e. the ones without tuition are sustained by tax money. I appreciate the call for practical alternatives though! For a long time I have been a proponent of transplanting the Lange-Lerner model into the HE sector.https://twitter.com/Calthalas/status/1265972360273936384 …

What would the implementation of that system look like in the higher education context? How would it be distinct from simply nationalizing the higher education sector and putting it under a state minister or board? Genuinely curious what the model would look like in practice.

Very shortly put, nationalization is key, but that is a feature of many already existing HE systems. Universities are funded by a state grant, but operate under full research autonomy. They practice direct allocation of resources, thus providing long-term stability of research.

Education and research output are in this system social dividends: a part of what the society gets as a public service. „Stagnation“ of research if funded by the state (so: us)? Enough to look at the drive for corona vaccination where the state that provided the main impulse.

This mixed model does not prescribe a „ministry-led“ research but rather a „market“ of social goods. No long-term infrastructure can be built without the state at some point stepping in. In the original thread not by accident I compare HE to railways :)

Ok, but I'm trying to understand, institutionally, what does that look like. So we nationalize the university. Is it funded by the Department of Education? Given the last four years, I am concerned putting the entire university system under, say, Betsy DeVos.

We can say that the system has full research independence (good!) but how do we lock that in institutionally, given that 'he who pays the piper, calls the tune'? Currently, the answer has tended to be a recognition that universities without research independence...

...will fail to measure up to those with it. But that assumes competition with universities outside of any system of central funding.