well since MIT is a private university - i'd say that should give you a hint where much of MIT's money came from. MIT's revenue from patent royalties alone was $69M in 2011 (individual depts recv'd another ~$25M). It is the largest tax payer in Cambridge MA because of its real estate holdings. The MIT endowment fund gained $1.4B last year and it spent $445M. So while MIT does get a large chunk of money from the federal gov't to do fundamental and applied research; most of the funding to "build and operate MIT" does not come from the US gov't nor you. I think they're very proud of these facts.
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