Progressive Politics

They're grants. Universities are one of the foremost research institutions in the world. Not granting them additional research funds would basically mean we're relying on donations or private research, which would be driven by profit potential instead of overall benefit to mankind.

Remember how after SARS universities started researching novel vaccine creation methods and that research lead to an extremely rapid development and response to COVID when more traditional vaccines would have taken several more years. But none of that was obviously profitable so there were no companies interested in doing that kind of research?

You know how nMRI and CRT machines are really neat but they didn't exist because we didn't understand physics enough to use giant spinning magnets and radioactive isotopes to see inside people without cutting them open. And how there wasn't a commercial use for those kind of low energy particles so existing reactors were just disposing of them as waste?

That kind of stuff.

Because the government wants (should want, its debatable rn) people to become educated and contribute to society, so they subsidize education. A lot of this money goes to research and scholarships, and while it's questionable why Harvard needs billions from the government when they already charge out the ass, it makes sense that the government (and in theory, the taxpayers too) want more people to get good education to help the country we all live in do better. This applies for a lot of colleges and universities, not just Harvard.