Earlier quoted context omitted.
Actually, Stanford does essentially pay students to go. Each undergraduate student costs Stanford about twice as much as they pay in tuition. This is typically the case at elite colleges, which is why they spend so much time seeking donations from alumni. (Also, the vast majority of students don't pay full tuition anyway because of the extensive financial aid systems at these schools.) http://talk.collegeconfidential…
That can't be right. First, your Delta study is woefully lacking in school - specific information. Second, the college confidential link's methodology seems to be missing a lot to me, particularly in the way of revenue. For example, for many universities (eg UPenn) the parking department is actually a huge revenue driver that must be taken into account to calculate overall university P&L, and that kind of thing is co…
You're right that the CC link misses revenue sources -- but isn't that the point? Stanford seems to be using money from non-student revenue sources to subsidize a majority of per-student expenses. (That is, students are getting "paid.")
Or are you assuming that all that other revenue still comes from students (e.g. parking), or directly from an unchanging endowment? Stanford raises hundreds of millions of dollars in donations from people who aren't students every year, more than enough to cover that $244.4m shortfall directly. Direct income from students is only a small part of the overall university budget: http://facts.stanford.edu/administration/finances
Anyway, I'm only making a factual spending claim here. I make no claim about the effectiveness of the spending in educating students -- that's a separate issue.