Medieval Baghdad funded student board and lodging from public funds.

Evidence

Of the schools he spoke more elaborately, and named the two great Baghdad foundations, the Nizamiyyah and the Mustansirlyyah. He admired the provision of board and lodging for provincial students, out of public funds, and he admired also the monastic spirit of these foundations, the austerity of a bread and water diet, and the students themselves, who, ‘content with these things, in the greatest poverty pursue contemplation and study’. — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 1201

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s interest in pre-state institutions and how public goods get funded — parallels Milgrom’s Champagne Fairs institutions.
• SEED: Angle: state-funded boarding schools in 13th-century Baghdad as a historical counterpoint to modern debates over public higher education funding.