Construction projects are typically the result of specific earmarked donations and sports investments often create lots of income. NCAA Division I programs should be thought of as a side business that generates revenue for the university.

Administrative staff is the major problem here. It’s also where most organizations tend to dump their excess revenue, and since the US has been aggressively subsidizing demand for universities for decades, they’ve had a ton of excess revenue to dump into administrative staff.

> TAs, grad students, adjunct professors

Most academic fields produce significantly more Ph.D.’s than there are tenure track positions or other full time professional careers. As a result, the grad student or Ph.D. exists in a competitive-verging-on-exploitative labor market. The typical grad student or adjunct is in the same position as the aspiring actor who has a day job in LA waiting tables. People always claim that this is because there aren’t enough tenure track positions, but I think that’s backwards. Why would you open up a tenure track position when you have a plethora of Ph.D’s who are apparently willing to work as adjuncts? If the universities didn’t produce as many Ph.D’s in the first place, the labor market would be more competitive and they would need to offer tenure track positions.