Agreed. This is what you get when you measure performance in terms of profits.
To quote Major General Smedley Butler:
"A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the
people. Only a small "inside" group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the
very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes."
Higher education is a rachet.
Students pay ever-higher tuition, which at some level is backstopped by the government. If you don't go to college and pursue prestigious degrees the job market will be inaccessible, beyond basic skill entry level.
Graduate students are exploited laborers for the promise of a PhD and a letter of recommendation for a postdoc. Drawing from a global pool of talent for cheap research labor. If you don't do everything your advisor says you will lose your visa, or not get a publication and your academic career is dead-on-arrival.
Professors are in an environment that encourages pursuing expensive application-based research and high impact publications to pad their resumes for tenure. If you don't rake in the money and publish in "prestigious" journal (usually the walled off ones) you will not be considered for tenure, a raise, etc.
Tax dollars fund research institutions that take their generous "administration" fees and then hand over findings to walled garden journals. If you don't fund research we will not make the breakthroughs that gave us out "comfortable" way of life.
In the US, student athletes (until recently) could not profit off their likeness and all the money went to the school.
At the end of the day, the team of MBAs and administrators make fat salaries. This wouldn't be so bad if institutions used the revenue to improve education and dissemination of knowledge. Instead, they build fancy stadiums and raise tuition.