As a way of reducing the costs of higher education in America, I’m wondering how well a “no-thrills” model of a university will be received by students, faculty

As a way of reducing the costs of higher education in America, I’m wondering how well a “no-thrills” model of a university will be received by students, faculty, employers, and other stakeholders? Today’s universities in America arguably have far more amenities than they did generations ago. My undergraduate institution, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, had in the mid-2000s (and still has) a police department, a large student union building complete with a bowling alley, a career center, many sports and recreation facilities, a health center offering many services, dormitories ranging from classic dorms to relatively fancy shared apartments, and many non-faculty employees offering a wide range of services to their students, from academic counselors to those that watched over the university’s many fraternities and sororities. I’m grateful for these services, and I used many of them. But I wonder how much this costs the university to run, and I also wonder if the addition of such services at universities throughout America, as beneficial as they are, helped contribute to the escalating cost of college? A good teaching-oriented university needs dedicated faculty, dedicated students, and facilities that help the faculty teach and help the students learn. Some costs are unavoidable, such as hiring good faculty, running a library, maintaining facilities, etc. However, if we eliminate the “frills” and pare a university down to its essentials, will it be affordable? I’m very curious if this is one of the major factors, or are there more significant factors leading to exploding costs?