In short, an increase in public operational funds for colleges and universities ought to result, and has historically resulted, in lower tuition fees, because institutions aren't having to seek out private user fees, private partnerships, etc., to fund the basic mandate of the institution.
To point out basic investigator-led research, the example we like to go to, which is obviously very timely and has been for a long time, is around vaccine technologies. The basic science underpinning mRNA vaccines and all vaccines has been the result largely of research that has been investigator-led, that has not been strictly directed toward a particular outcome. Of course, they have had wonderful outcomes, in this case, vaccines.
We need scientists and researchers to be able to conduct that research in an unfettered manner in order to make the very innovative discoveries that have fuelled things like vaccines, for example.