ABSTRACT
The difference between public colleges and private colleges is lessening in the United States. They are all a mixture of private funds and public funds. This includes grant money from government agencies for research, although the more research-oriented universities get more research grant money. This is an example of the kind of Super-optimum solutions (SOS) that involves combining liberal and conservative alternatives where they are not mutually exclusive. American state universities, like Berkeley, Michigan and Wisconsin, are the snobbiest places in the country, as compared to the small totally private liberal arts colleges that have relatively little intellectual prestige. One can say that American higher education is an SOS, not just because it simultaneously satisfies liberal and conservative goals, but because it is viewed as superior to the higher education systems of any other country. The basic alternatives in the public policy dispute over how to provide legal services to the poor are a volunteer system versus salaried government lawyers.
