In this article, Robert M. Gates, former Secretary of Defense and chancellor of the College of William & Mary, makes three observations about public higher education: (1) Over the past generation we have seen a gradual abandonment of the principle that higher education is a public good and the emergence of a view that it is a private consumer good; (2) Funding shortfalls affect not only education, but also research. What is discovered in research one day is taught in the classroom the next, and then employed as a tool of economic development, innovation, and national defense; and (3) Everyone will pay the price for short-changing education, research, and other investments in the future. It will be felt in the decline of America's quality of life, standards of living, and global influence.