The shift to the right coincides with a decades long attack on academia and intellectualism. Change incentives, allow the structures to corrode and the weight to shift and the bridge will come down on its own.
If one is only outcome based and based on simple linear line of sight, we will never make the discoveries. But if that statement is outcome based, we should be settings these minds free to discover everything they can, not just STEM advancements.
This is a comforting narrative for leftists, but it's objectively false.
The attacks on academia and "intellectualism" (isn't it interesting how progressives presume a monopoly on this, just as they do on progress?) are a reaction to the exploitation of the academy as a tool for political indoctrination.
Individuals with openly right-wing beliefs are personas non grata on faculty, in administrations, etc. There's a reason for that. The left is desperate to maintain its stranglehold on one of the major sense-making organs of the culture - and its stranglehold on the ability to socially engineer the next generation of educated professionals.
Sure, this country with that thinking might be able to attract the best talent from other countries to innovate and do research, but politically it might not be wise to always count on it.
When a populous has the mindset of dismissing universities and education to just get a job, then don’t be surprised when they fail to keep up with the latest advances in AI and science.