The fundamental broad fix is to have state universities that are funded to the level where they don't need to charge for tuition.
We had that, then got rid of it because university students doth protest too much (as in, they protested the Vietnam war). Apparently an educated proletariat is "inherently Communist" or something?!
Anyway. The removal of public funding means that public universities had to beg at the trough of private capital. Which means they need to be able to sell them something in order to get that capital; and that something is usually an extreme appeal to vanity. Shit like entire buildings named after a particular investor who thinks they're suddenly a building architect; or letting all their failsons attend purely to save face.
This need for private capital is also why "publish or perish" became the law of academia - with all the scientific scandal and misconduct that comes with it. Keeping a high profile means more research grants and those grants may just lead to patentable inventions that universities can charge royalties on.
And of course let's not forget the endowments - the billion dollar tails wagging the university dog. Because the reason why most universities went along with this systematic defunding was that they got the ability to play capitalist themselves. Every university is effectively a private, for-profit business, even if they aren't run that way.
I'm not sure why you think, if they were fully funded by the public, that they would not also continue to go for private capital in addition to those funds. Anything extra they can juice out of alumni, corporations, and "donors" would be gravy for their endowments, and allow them to gold-plate their administrative salaries. The steeper the line goes up and to the right, the better for them. No organization, private or public, profit or non-profit, turns down money they could potentially get.
We had that, then got rid of it because university students doth protest too much (as in, they protested the Vietnam war). Apparently an educated proletariat is "inherently Communist" or something?!
Anyway. The removal of public funding means that public universities had to beg at the trough of private capital. Which means they need to be able to sell them something in order to get that capital; and that something is usually an extreme appeal to vanity. Shit like entire buildings named after a particular investor who thinks they're suddenly a building architect; or letting all their failsons attend purely to save face.
This need for private capital is also why "publish or perish" became the law of academia - with all the scientific scandal and misconduct that comes with it. Keeping a high profile means more research grants and those grants may just lead to patentable inventions that universities can charge royalties on.
And of course let's not forget the endowments - the billion dollar tails wagging the university dog. Because the reason why most universities went along with this systematic defunding was that they got the ability to play capitalist themselves. Every university is effectively a private, for-profit business, even if they aren't run that way.