The ideal way to implement this dialog IMHO is simply to (somehow) let the user specify the order in which he wants to research the different schools. Voila, no twiddling about with awkward sliders or trying to remember how many points the next level costs etc, it would simply work.
Stretching my imagination, I can think of at least one reason why I would want to deviate from the straight approach of researching stuff sequentially, but it's pretty obscure
