<p>I think pierre’s point is pretty straightforward, bird rock. A relatively high proportion of the Massachusetts population is relatively affluent and highly educated. It invests reasonably well in public education prior to college, although as downtoearth points out, it may have been resting on its old infrastructure for quite a while. Harvard and MIT are two of the best research universities in the world, arguably each is best of breed. Harvard is unique in its reputation and touch beyond academia (alumni network, advice to governments, etc.). There are many other strong schools in the state including Amherst and Williams which often rank at the top of LACs. There’s BC, BU, Olin, and hundreds of other schools here. The state is the center of the biotech industry, is reasonably strong in high tech and VC (though on a downward trajectory, I’d say), and strong in finance. The industries employ highly educated, affluent folks who typically value their kids’ education highly. So, why do we not invest in a manner comparable to other states in our public university? So, it is not a </p>
<p>I’m not an expert on this, but there is no inherent snobbery in wondering why a state whose primary asset is human capital does not invest more heavily in its human capital since we should have the understanding of the need and the resources to do so. I think kayf and BCeagle have part of the explanation. We’ve been free-riding to a certain extent on the great private institutions. Second, the political class in the state appears to be highly attached to education (or much beyond patronage). I’ve never understood state and Boston politics, but one of my friends, who had a very successful stint in a high position here, told me that to be successful in getting stuff done in matters involving the state government (and particularly the legislature), one needs to know what neighborhood in Southie people come from. If true (and my friend is very astute so I’d bet he’s right), politics in Massachusetts is relatively tribal and the political power is concentrated in a very small part of the population, and that part of the population isn’t as invested in higher education as much of the state. BCEagle is also correct in saying that because of the inefficiency, vestiges of old-style social welfare, nepotism and corruption, we get a lot less bang for our tax buck than other states do. So, we’ve got lack of tradition (we never needed to have a great flagship when it was an two-class society), lack of vision among our political leaders, and an inefficient mechanism for converting tax dollars into improvements. </p>
<p>Incidentally, Pierre, out high schools could be a lot better than they are, but we have a plethora of excellent private high schools and people who would push for excellent public schools lose interest in paying higher taxes for a good they don’t expect to benefit from (at least directly). To a certain extent, the same is true for universities.</p>
<p>Incidentally, despite all of this and the bad weather and the sub-standard infrastructure, I like living here because there are a lot of really interesting people.</p>