> In my institution research is 100% supported by
> outside grants - we do not get a penny from tuition.
Not only that, but research grants usually have to pay "overhead" into the general fund at rates that exceed my imagination. This even includes hardware purchased for the research: a project I was on once had $2700 of "overhead" tacked onto the price of a $2500 server purchased from Dell that didn't even live on campus.
/jordan