I suspect that the money taxpayers used to spend on humanities professors in women's studies is a pittance compared to the money they're now wasting because grab-em-by-the-***** regime never took one of those classes. Ignoring half of your population comes at the price of social unrest, which it turns out is very expensive.

This applies just as well to biology.

My original point is to make a point that biology or academia in general is very romantic to outsiders - but it's not a very +EV play unless (1) you are already very independently wealth, or (2) you are really really into the subject and know what you're signing up for (the long odds, hours and politics). 99% of the people will take this as a pessimistic view and stop there but 1% will actually pursue option (2).

RE: your political point, I submit to you many institutions are very left-leaning and "Woke-1" was defeated by its emphasis on shaming tactics and identity politics - which ironically brought upon the identity politics of the right and the current "regimen's" backlash on defunding DEI initiatives, which hurts ironically the sciences most due to its outsized reliance from NIH/NSF/DARPA etc. And I welcome actually "Woke-2.0" where DSA is actually focused on kitchen table issues such as grocery and health insurance cost; and anticipate that our political pendulum will swing to the left at the next cycle.