At the place I worked at, students would need to take out a small mortgage just to pay tuition. Yet, the quality of teaching was shockingly low on the list of priorities of faculty. The administration was more concerned about growing the program (i.e. revenues) than it was about maintaining quality of teaching or research.
The big expenditure that I saw was to maintain and develop ties with the big consultancies. The more students that could get lucrative consulting gigs after graduation meant that the average salary of graduates was higher. This in turn meant that the program received higher rankings from the FT... and so more MBAs wanted to attend. In terms of research and teaching, I think the main goal was to appear to be doing good work rather than to actually be doing it. Keeping up appearances / being part of the club of top schools meant a lot to everyone I met.
The research can be multi-disciplinary and I suppose that is good. However, b-schools like to keep up the pretense that they are technocratic (or value free). I saw a lack of any real research that could be considered critical of the status quo. (In one case, a major project was funded by a major consulting company. They also had a hand in the research to develop their own white papers. It was a farce.)
In short, for academia it's a lucrative gig for all involved. Why be a poorly paid sociologist when you can be a "strategy expert"? The trade-off is simply that you don't ask some questions. In return you get a really, really nice place to work, great perks (free food, drinks in the quad, fancy dinners, etc.) I don't blame any individual for making that choice.
But I don't believe for a second that it's anything but a scam for most middle class students who will carry that debt for years. I suppose it is no wonder than MBA students are looking out for themselves when they graduate.