>The price being so outrageously high does also call into question whether their charitable endowments could reasonably be characterized as part of a tax avoidance scam.

I dont see how that follows at all. They spend more on students than they receive in tuition funds. Who would they be scamming? What if they offered a million dollar education? I still dont see how that would impact their non-profit status.

If they offered a million dollar education, I'd say the IRS should heavily scrutinize their budget, and if they did manage to stay within the letter of the law, it's likely that the law should be fixed because holistically, it's unlikely that they're truly spending over 20x what comparable universities do on educating students.

What laws are you worried about specifically? You could run a non-profit giving million dollar spa days.

You can't run a 501(c)(3) giving million dollar spa days though. If you're actually running e.g. a 501(c)(7) social club, then your investment income is taxable, and there are limits on unrelated business activities. If you're an educational nonprofit and your purported spending on education is wildly out of line with what it costs elsewhere, that should raise eyebrows as to whether that money is being spent on education.

I dont think it is as clear as that. My understanding is much of the distinction between those two comes down to who the beneficiary is and if it is a self serving private membership, or serving the public.

Either way, I dont see the educational requirements for costs in line with other institutions, especially when the institutions can easily showing they are spending more on the students than they are charging. Discounting a $100k educational experience to 85k is still a benefit to the public. Someone offering a different educational experience for $20k doesn't negate that.

If we want more cheaper universities and education as a society, we should think about creating them, not trying to force expensive universities to be cheaper.

The challenge is that people don't actually want cheap accessible education, they want luxury too.