This thing you point out about construction is what has always struck me as an European. The first American university I visited was Princeton and you'd expect

This thing you point out about construction is what has always struck me as an European. The first American university I visited was Princeton and you'd expect it to look very good and have wonderful facilities (and it did). On the other hand I visited small local university like Curry and Bentley, which have absolutely no academic clout and I really don't should have such nice campuses, when the quality of courses is pretty low. Your comment really is illuminating to me: news outlets, and possibly parents doing touring when college shopping only really care about the surface.