One can only hope. That said, in these times, nothing comes back as it was, but usually in some revamped, capitalism-friendly way.
I'm going to say more about this: I do believe that universities are not fulfilling their duty towards the society they're supposed to serve, especially, but not limited to, when it comes to technology.
Why don't all universities have free USENET/IRC servers accessible to everyone and maintained by the students as part of their education? Why don't they all keep Tor nodes? Why don't they experiment with newer, better ways to communicate?
All of those proposals are relatively cheap, educational and good for society as a whole. And when I was a student, they were already doing that. They just decided to stop at some point.
