I must have been thinking about something else. Anyway, it seems that there are a great many parallels to be drawn between McDonald's and the modern university. Just like McDonald's exists to get you from hungry to full in the most efficient and profitable way possible, the university exists to get you from high school into a well-paying job the same way. This is more true of some departments than others, of course, and more true of some schools than others. Whenever a professor gets a money-making patent or works for an industry, Iowa State um, I mean our hypothetical example university gets a healthy cut.
More research means more prestige which means more donation from alumni.
Educating students is not nearly as profitable because student fees are pretty much constant. In addition, curricula and degree programs are so standardized that the job of the professor as educator is pretty much limited to a set routine. The university must think that all professors are interchangeable and expendable with respect to teaching. The trend toward McDonaldization is difficult to fight against. There is nothing more difficult than telling powerful people that there may be something more important than profit.