The US universities are too focused on increasing funding. This has major externalities: Marketing and premium salaries for sales staff. Marketing expenses incl

The US universities are too focused on increasing funding. This has major externalities: Marketing and premium salaries for sales staff. Marketing expenses include spending on buildings and programs (sports) which have no impact on academic output. Sales costs are related to lobbying and outreach staff - some of them extremely expensive as - unlike boring admin staff - can command premium salaries in industry. US universities have become optimized to chase after marginal dollars of additional income at the expense of cost efficiency of education. The financial incentives of the vast majority of non-academic staff are not aligned with education and this part has been in control since the ’90.