“First of all, [colleges] are not simply for the education of students.  This is an essential function, but the raison d’être of a college is to nourish a world of intellectual culture; that is, a world of ideas, dedicated to what we can know scientifically, understand humanistically, or express artistically… Our support for higher education makes sense only if we regard this intellectual culture as essential to our society.” - http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/?p=115367