Successful companies pay a lot in taxes (through employment if nothing else), so technically the government does see dividends (albeit in a non-traditional form). However, given the nature of government, it should technically be enough if society benefits more than the expected investment amount, regardless of the government payback.

It's not that simple; every company pays a lot in taxes, so the government doesn't benefit more than if a random VC had put the money in instead.

There's also the opportunity cost of the investment; the yield has to be compared to things like food stamps, education, basic research etc. There's a lot of low hanging fruit a well run government could be picking.

I would also tend towards the view that if the government invests like a VC it should take equity. If these companies genuinely have no other option, I don't see why this would be a deal killer. If they have VC they could take instead, the government shouldn't be offering free money.

The more companies though, the more times the same dollar can be taxed.

We shouldn’t set profit expectations because of their future consequences on how the program will be judged.

The financial goals of this program shouldn’t be profit — or even break even. Any profit expectations will undermine the the way this program is evaluated.

Right, but it also seems irresponsible to completely ignore an obvious revenue opportunity where it exists. IMO with proper branding as some type of "Give back" tax on successful graduates, it wouldn't need to be close to break even, and could help the program grow.

Screw the profit, give the money back to US citizens via a general social dividend.

We're talking about a tiny investment fund. It would be good if it just managed to break even.

Yeah but then you have to have that same agency deciding when it wants to sell shares, how it wants to use any voting power, etc. It adds overhead to the program that will negate some of the returns from equity.