Without someone to teach us something growing up we would still be living in caves. We don’t have to agree with someone just because they have title of academic but academics serve a purpose for which they are appropriately paid. That’ not “freeloading”.
The real reason you attack academics is because of your obvious far right politics which tries to dismantle government institutions. While the far right and far left endlessly whine how they are so “oppressed” we live in greatest era of human prosperity in human history.