Education is priced so low that students flood the system. Tuition at Auburn is especially underpriced because the quality of the education is appreciably higher than at other institutions in the state, but the tuition does not reflect it. If quality were increased substantially, and especially if parents knew that only top-quality students would be at the university, I think that most parents would willingly pay substantially higher tuition rates. Flagship universities in other states charge more than five times what Auburn does, and they have far more applicants than they can accept. Top-quality private schools that charge more than ten times what Auburn does, also have to turn away applicants.
People expect to pay more for excellence.
Schools with no hope of excelling in all fields might want to specialize, hoping to attract just those single-minded enough to stick with that specialization. However, we should not aim to make Auburn one of those schools. There is room in the state for a university that offers high-quality education in all fields, albeit at higher prices, for students who are especially likely to benefit from such an education. Auburn should aim to be that university.