Rich people from all over the world send their kids to school here because rich people from all over the world send their kids to school here. At one time, it w

Rich people from all over the world send their kids to school here because rich people from all over the world send their kids to school here. At one time, it was "studying at Oxford". Now it's studying in America. If you have a top-50 U.S. university degree, when you go back you will be one or two levels below the CEO in your first job. That has value to the U.S. and it obviously pumps a lot of money into American universities, but it has more to do with social signaling than quality of education. That's not to say that the top American universities aren't very good (they are) but that's not what it's really about.