Colleges Spend Like There's No Tomorrow. 'These Places Are Just Devouring Money.'

[question everything]

16. Reagan severely sliced the funds for Doctoral and PostDoc educations

Kept only funds for "Star Wars" or something.

Thus, instead of staying in academia to continue research - basic and applied -freshly minted Ph.D.s had to go and find a job outside of academia.

This, I propose, is one reason for the high drug prices. Yes, it takes 10 to 20 years to develop a brand new drug. But the Ph.D.s who would stay in academia could work on a new drug - as they have done before Reagan - supported by tax money and, yes, by industry. And once something would be discovered, then it would be licensed to a pharmaceutical company, reducing the time it takes to develop a new drug and, one hopes, the justified cost.

Of course, members in Congress were not exactly supportive of tax money for basic research. Someone had a "fleece award" or something for something basic that they could not see a reason for it.

And former congressman Dingell, who, I think, was admired on these pages, decided to go after a distinguished Nobel laureate because the lab notes of a post doc there did not make sense for him.