I think the Abu Dhabi campus is just one symptom of the greater problem the author is making. Grand real estate ambitions in lower Manhattan cost a lot of mone

I think the Abu Dhabi campus is just one symptom of the greater problem the author is making. Grand real estate ambitions in lower Manhattan cost a lot of money; what many consider over-the-top perks for professors (or administration) also cost a lot of money. The school has a small endowment compared to what it would like to consider its peer group; therefore the cost of all these things, which, in the author's opinion, do very little to improve a student's education all fall onto the students as increased tuition. I tend to agree wholeheartedly with the author, and see symptoms of the same thing at my alma mater, which feels the need to rebrand itself as Stony Brook University instead of SUNY Stony Brook, because it doesn't want to sound as much like a state school.