Counterpoint: there's a vast underinvestment in academia and universities are cutting faculty jobs in favor of underpaid sessional instructors. We're paying much more for administration and executive salaries which don't add value to society, only line their pocketbooks with taxpayer dollars and ever-increasing tuition.
There will always be a perceived underinvestment in academic research. That's because "reproduction" of PhDs is so rapid that their number will expand to fill any funding available and then some. Aside from short lived transients, fields will exist in a state of Malthusian equilibrium, with most PhDs failing to stay in academic research. And this overabundance explains the relatively low salaries.
