True. Even though many will argue against this citing the 'practicalities' involved, this is just another instance of long vs. short term investment (in general, not just financial terms). Long term investment (like free education and state funded science) is supposed to be harder and more costly in the short term, because the payoff comes later, but it is much higher and leads to a healthier system, making things easier, incuding more investment. Whereas short term is usually damaging to the system and makes things harder long term.
I really like the saying that an idealist is a realist (or pragmatist) just using a longer timeline.