alt Hacker NewsThe rich of today lack taste, they aren't funding the opera beacuse they watch marvel movies instead.
In the past they were well read, educated and had class. They would dress better, not wearing $1000 sneakers and designer sweatpants but tailored suits and Italian shoes. Talk better due to years of study. The women would walk around with books on their heads to learn to glide around the room ethereally.
It doesn't sting as much when the guy who is richer than you is more cultured and put together. When he's an idiot with a mustard stain on his shirt just like you it's unbearable.
Yes maybe it was a class thing.
It's just astonishing how many universities / institutes were founded from ~1800-1900ish by rich industrialists to varying degrees - Vanderbilt, Carnegie Mellon, Drexel, U of Chicago, Stanford, Johns Hopkins, Cornell, WPI, RPI, NYU, Purdue, CalTech, . (Some of these are sort of public-private partnership "land grants")
Maybe it's also a change in tax policy or relative cost of capital vs labor (universities are now expensive to operate due to their staff, not the buildings/land).
Meanwhile the only schools you see being founded in the last 30 years are scam for-profits / virtual universities / diploma mills. One of these scams were even run by one of our presidential candidates.