<p>Can somebody explain to me how all of this “research” benefits society? I get that medical research, anything having to do with advancing scientific knowledge might be a great boon to society, even research on mental illness, sociology, etc. at times might be beneficial, but what percentage of the research done at these “research” universities really have any incremental benefit for the rest of us. I suspect that the great majority of all of these papers are read by maybe five people in the world. It was bell labs who brought us so many great inventions, and apple, etc, not the professors of the world, so far as I know anyway. And when it comes to the latest and greatest drugs, that is usually the work of private companies, not universities. How many more things can be said about Abraham Lincoln that hasn’t already been said or discovered?</p>