Why have two or three instructors when you could have one associate Dean! The associate Dean even comes with a PhD! Never mind that it's in "educational leadership". That's the equivalent to a real topic. And it pays better too.

The reason people want to go to Harvard and MIT is because it's competitive and exclusive.

You can take the same courses online and buy all the same books but that doesn't prove you're smart and hard working enough to get into Harvard and MIT. Almost all of the value in going to Harvard over Boston community college is in the degree which proves you made it into an exclusive and competitive group.

Unfortunately, it probably doesn’t pay for itself in value creation (“Human Capital Theory”). If you’re interested in this topic, I’d recommend https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Case_Against_Education.

They essentially do, but on other campuses throughout the state. The prestige of a University of Washington degree is much higher than one from Eastern Washington University and the quality at UW is probably also higher than that of EWU and similar schools but a student is going to be better off getting out into the world getting hands on experience with a bit lesser quality education.