I see people writing who comment about excessive expenses, for instance for fancy facilities. I'm a prof (not in any kind of administrations, though), and when

I see people writing who comment about excessive expenses, for instance for fancy facilities. I'm a prof (not in any kind of administrations, though), and when I went to state school in 76 there were non of these things, for sure. But I have been in meetings where the admissions folks say "Prospective students read in US News that they should ask about athletic facilities and ours is significantly worse than our competitors" and the next thing you know we are building a knockout gym. I perfectly understand the decision. (It reminds me of the kind of stuff you read in Jared Diamond's Collapse, where the system globally has problems that everyone can see but locally they are forced to act in the same way as everyone else.)