Social opportunity cost analyses of the university education in Bangladesh indicate that public universities are far costlier to the society than their counterparts in the private sector. This indication seems to contradict a general perception that the public universities provide lower cost education. For Dhaka University in particular, the opportunity cost of education is substantially higher than any of the private universities in the sample chosen for this study. In addition to opportunity cost analysis, arguments are also presented to show that full-time engagement in disruptive non-academic activities may be equilibrium behavior on the part of the students in Dhaka University under the present circumstances. Arguments are presented to explain why the externality arguments may not justify subsidizing university education, sacrificing primary education that has a much higher social rate of return. Our numerical exercise shows that, with the amount of implicit and explicit subsidy currently spent on Dhaka University in one year, the government could construct 13,565 primary schools accommodating 14.5 million children.