I was surprised to learn that, at the university I went to, each department paid the administration to use its own classrooms, and if some other party (say, a research lab) needed the room, they could just pay more. It turns out, teaching is not the main business of universities any more. They have a lot of revenue sources these days, and tuition is just one of them: research, athletics, and investments to name a few. Even considering only tuition, the quality of teaching is only one reason students pay to go to a brand name school: the logo on the diploma, the social connections, the job pipeline, the location, and so on also count. For me, it was an unintuitive and disheartening realization.
> It turns out, teaching is not the main business of universities any more.
Astronaut 1: You mean, the purpose of the university isn't to teach?
Astronaut 2: Never has been.
Even in the 90s, when I was going to a second- or third-tier name brand university, the emphasis clearly wasn't on teaching but on snagging grant money and cranking out papers. Even the professors seemed to consider teaching an annoying distraction from their real jobs.
