I'm questioning the role of student tuition and state taxes supporting academic research. The big support of academic research was after The Bomb and then during the Cold War. Congress, for purposes of US national security, arranged that the best research universities would receive an offer they couldn't refuse -- accept the money for STEM field research, keep 60% for overhead, the English department, the string quartet series, etc., and otherwise have research and teaching grad students. If can't get US students, then try Taiwan and India.

So, in effect, yes: If Congress wants to fund research, then they should fund research institutes.

I just don't like student tuition or state tax money funding STEM field research.

There are research institutions: JPL, Brookhaven, Oak Ridge, Los Alamos, SLAC, Fermi Lab, NIH in Bethesda, ....