The impact on society can be tremendous. If we have somebody who invent a cure for malaria, think what that does for the world. Brown has been acquiring land and working with developers on land that we don't own to really build in area. The city of providence has changed so much over the past forty or 50 years. But there are some justified, hard feelings that have built up over years.
Enrollment is down for the first time in memory, and critics complain college is too expensive, too elitist, and too politicized. The economist Chris Paxson — who happens to be the president of Brown University — does not agree. (Part 3 of “Freakonomics Radio Goes Back to School.”)