Are you only speaking of public universities? I worked at an expensive, private, liberal arts, non-profit college, where I witnessed revolting inefficiency. Do such schools receive _significant_ state funding? Any?
One example of the waste I witnessed: at the end of the financial year, the student services departments where I worked would blow whatever money remained in their budget on frivolous, needless things, because if they didn't spend it, it went back into the college's budget. This mostly changed after the 2008 financial crisis, (I think?) but that's how it was for a long, long time. All staff were complicit, and knew what they were doing. These departments were given executive privileges with very little oversight of expenditure or outcomes. The corruption was surreal.
Another dynamic that I never see mentioned: in a small college town, the hiring pool is challenging, and the college jobs are the high-status local jobs. I witnessed, on several occasions, needless positions being opened for people who were basically friends of staff, so they could have one of the "college jobs".
When I hear students discussing college debt, and I remember these and other examples, it makes me a bit sick.
If only they hired an inspector general or auditor to keep tabs on these sort of shenanigans! /s
The problem is that in an effort to avoid being wasteful, the bureaucracy aggressively tracks money spent, and forces a return of unused funds. This in turn disincentivizes saving because there is literally no benefit to spending efficiently or saving money for rough times, because those short term savings are immediately vacuumed back up by the higher level bureacracy.
Blaming student services departments for overspending is missing the root of the problem. I've seen the exact same issues in STEM research institutions.
I worked in a Student Services office for 15 years, but I suspect this happens all over the place.
I also suspect that much of this changed after the 2008 financial crisis, as universities suddenly had to match their programs with career outcomes. Then the worst thing happened: administrations expanded even more, while the essential liberal arts are being suffocated and squeezed out.
We lost the best part of the college concept, and kept all the worst parts.
Decreased (per capita, inflation-adjusted) state (and federal) funding for schools (mostly state) and student grants (state and federal) effects both public and private schools.