Thats the problem though right? "Paying for itself" means students paying higher costs which is the problem.

That was the upshot of the second paragraph of my post - in Canada, students don’t pay an absurd amount, so it’s not really a problem.

You don't need a lot of space for dance halls and music studios for under 2000 students. People add sound insulation to existing rooms at relatively low cost and it's cheaper when your starting from scratch.

So, in terms of education they really could have done the same thing for under 50 million, but why build a utilitarian box when you want to attract students.

The school only has 20k student population and music students are going to other buildings. So, it's not simultaneously unless you mean as an audience.

I mean sure it looks nice, but that price tag is not due to utility. 60 million still pays for a huge building even at 1/3 the cost.

A building that has studio space for 1800 should be much cheaper, building costs should be on the order of $500/student/year to keep tuition reasonable.