Not to mention the fact that the academic institution usually takes a hefty "tax" on any grants awarded. Where I work, they take around 30-40% I believe.
I think overhead rates at most big state schools are around 50%, and I believe they are higher at a lot of elite private universities. This is the link I got when I googled "Yale overhead rate":
If I am reading it right, it says that on-campus research has an overhead rate of 67.50 or 69.0 percent depending on the funding source. Ouch! I imagine that the federal government knows that it is subsidizing universities as a whole through this system and intends to do so.
