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In many other countries, top academics and researchers are at large public universities.

Maybe it would be money well-spent for the public-sector to poach top academics from private intuitions.

It would lead to salary inflation, but might be the most cost effective way to sap prestige and inject into good public universities.

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It happens. University of Texas. At least parts of the University of California system. UMass Amherst is a pretty good school. At least main campuses of the upper tier of state universities can provide good educations. What's probably also true is that you can go to Ohio State and either take advantage of it or cruise through partying and taking X for jocks courses.

> In many other countries, top academics and researchers are at large public universities.

But that’s not even terribly relevant to the average student. An undergraduate won’t benefit from going down the same hallways as the world’s foremost expert on Nigerian guinea pig digestive tracts. But for some reason having studied at the top university (in terms of research, not teaching) matters a lot.

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