In 1971 tuition, room and board at the average US university was $18,140 (in today’s dollars).

Today it’s $48,150.

Almost all of the increase in spending has gone to huge administrative salary + pensions and enormously expensive facilities.

You can’t reverse those.

A massive increase in international students (who pay full sticker price) has made it possible for schools to remain so leveraged and still stay afloat.

If campuses don’t open:

a. International students won’t come to the US

b. Students won’t pay full price for remote classes

In effect, many schools created a pretty elegant mechanism to let local students pay far less in tuition and offset that by charging foreign students more.

Which is great until the foreign students don’t come.