Stigler complained that the demand expressed by government for science as channeled through the system of publicly funded universities and grant programs had become intertwined with a set of egalitarian concerns, encouraging “diffusion” of talent, leading ultimately to a decrease in the quality of research, entrenching professional consensus. Estate taxes eliminated the possibility of a future Rockefeller, and therefore the establishment of another University of Chicago was out of the question. States had diverted resources to the system of public universities that otherwise would have gone to a Harvard or, better yet, a Chicago. Overall, Stigler was skeptical of the prospects for US higher education, but he held out limited hope that a small set of institutions might yet help to impose the higher standards that he so desired.

Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, loc. 121