This is partly true. What I've seen personally is that with each increase in the tuition I experienced they were busy throwing that money at facilities and whatever else they could think up. Some of it was decent like actual improvements to aging buildings, but most of it was BS facilities like completely redoing the student center which had no real issues and been renovated barely two years earlier. It seems like the universities are following the same pattern that many hospitals have done: if they have money they must spend it even if it's not to the benefit of its consumers or its shareholders. It's like these institutions have replicated the Stalinist "make every thing big" mentality.