<p>Those 2 articles taken together do raise another issue that was been debated here before - do the public universities exist to educate their immediate public, primarily, or is their most important mission to be a bastion of research? Note that the prof left because of lack of funding for research, not because the lecture rooms lacked any modern teaching equipment. I don't know the answer, I just pose the question. I know that in my little state, gaps in state funding have been met by one university through partnerships with the private sector, and subsequent philanthropy. whil that has been great for the engineering and business depts, it doesn't necessarily keep the lights on, because the programs funded by the partnership would never have existed without the partnership.</p>