Something doesn’t need to be “optimal” for it to highly net positive. But even if you don’t want to believe all the research and all the very obvious examples

Something doesn’t need to be “optimal” for it to highly net positive. But even if you don’t want to believe all the research and all the very obvious examples that suggest the tremendous benefits of public research even from a purely monetary perspective, maybe just consider that nearly every other country is trying to rebuild what the U.S. has in terms of public research. China, Europe, etc. And countries in the Middle East are using their oil money to essentially pay for these universities to build campuses in their nations.