I don't even think you are contradicting me here. It's just that "MIT" has grown to be a lot lot more than educating its students (for better or for worse), and

I don't even think you are contradicting me here. It's just that "MIT" has grown to be a lot lot more than educating its students (for better or for worse), and its ... "interests" much more varied as a result. After all, the students are there for a few years and then leave. Who are the real long-term stakeholders here? As I pointed out already, it's the bureaucracy, the professors, all the commercial interests wanting in on the MIT pie, and an institutional leadership interested in all the powers that accrue to overseeing a larger endowment with a greater capital return. How MIT's immediate neighborhood has developed into an unlivable office park is a vivid example of what I say.