I do believe that we need to think about all kinds of new ways to provide high-quality education for students at a much lower cost than we currently are able to provide it for.

I'm Bethany McLean.

Did you ever have a moment of doubt about capitalism and whether greed's a good idea?

And I'm Luigi Zengalis.

We have socialism for the very rich, rugged individualism for the poor.

And this is Capital Isn't, a podcast about what is working in capitalism.

First of all, tell me, is there some society you know that doesn't run on greed?

And most importantly, what isn't?

We ought to do better by the people that get left behind.

I don't think we shouldn't kill the capital system in the process.

So Capital Isn't is returning to the topic of universities.

Not because Luigi is obsessed with it.

Well, he is.

But also because we think it's going to be a crucial policy issue in 2025.

In a recent interview with Barry Weiss, Peter Thiel, the whisper of the first and probably

the second Trump administration, announced that he would cut almost all of the universities

overhead, the money that goes to anything other than research and teaching. In spite of his

academic pedigree, he has a law degree

from Stanford. He's been a harsh critic of universities, and he's one of the many backers of the

University of Austin, which was founded by Barry Weiss in 2021, based on the idea that other colleges

are not providing open places for discourse. But it turns out that Peter Thiel was just the tip of the proverbial iceberg.

As Axios wrote the other day, under President Trump, his total warfare on all aspects of

...