Establish the culture of not being afraid to "offend with facts", which academia is now lacking.

Run universities as nonprofits.

Here’s a fact: Taiwan is a sovereign independent nation. Try saying that as a professor and not getting attacked by China’s expat thought goons.

Becoming less dependent period would be a start - universities seem to catchup themselves in net lossy winner takes all marketing spirals from campus cosmetics to trying to compete in sports by funneling money in that is usually not earned back.

The thing to make abundantly clear to less than free nations of all stripes is that the committment to truth and dialogue are an integral part of the quality they are sending students there for in the first place.

stop paying the administration so damn much?

They need to dramatically lower headcount including professors and likely lower salaries as well. The total expense of US higher education needs to come way down.

Federally guaranteed student loans exceed $120 billion every year. That is a massive subsidy, and it may be increasing costs for more people than it helps. The glut of admissions being able to pay artifically high tuitions is emboldening administrators to add more dormitories every year, expand the administrative class, and build rec centers -- raising tuition even further.

> Last year, FSA provided more than $120 billion in federal grants, loans, and work-study funds to approximately 13 million students at nearly 6,000 participating schools.

https://www2.ed.gov/about/reports/annual/2017report/fsa-repo...

What is the correlation between status as the best in the world and cost? I'm not saying it's perfect, but surely there is some relation.

American Universities are hardly "best in the world". American education is universally scorned, apart from a small handful of institutions.

The draw for US universities is as a gateway to possible citizenship in the future.

really, really untrue. My most recent trip to Asia had most of the "smaller" midwest Uni's promoted (as for many it's the only way into US higher Edu).

Get funded by society (taxes) instead of individuals. 1% of the military budged would do.