A new article by Ball State economics professor Marilyn Flowers covers lots of elements of academia’s self-aggrandizing tendencies: mission creep, expensive buildings for vague purposes, misuse of eminent domain, passing costs on to students that have nothing to do with their educations, and more. Plus weak, unquestioning trustees and administrators.
It all adds up to a mind-boggling lack of cost control and unfairly subsidized competition with the private sector, in this case the hotel industry.