[tormeh]

>Regarding buildings and marketing: you have to work hard to attract the absolute top students, especially in a huge education market like the US.

Government paid higher education usually don't care that much about getting top students. They may or may not come. This attitude makes saving on all the extra stuff pretty easy.

Anyway, not all universities can have top students, by definition, so most universities' generous facilities are wasted in an arms race they can't win.

[hyperpape]

State universities are absolutely trying to pull in better students. They track average SATs and every other metric. For the top schools in each state, this is not just an issue of prestige, public funding, and attracting stronger faculty, its also about endowments growing because those students graduate and have more money to contribute.