You're conflating a bunch of stuff. New buildings almost always come out of restricted funding from donors, not from tuition. While schools are hiring more adm

You're conflating a bunch of stuff. New buildings almost always come out of restricted funding from donors, not from tuition. While schools are hiring more admin staff -- much of it mandated by the federal government -- the amount of faculty is dropping. Funding for state schools has dropped a lot. This is an undisputed fact. You have places that may have once been 60% funded by the state that are now down to around 10% or so. Of course tuition went up.