5. Luxury student dorms.
6. High-end gym facilities.
7. Junior professional sports (Bonus: pay and benefits for the athletes is peanuts.)
The things I don't like about universities are the hardest to replace.
Having slept in many of those dorms, I would not call them luxurious.
If potential students come to visit a college and the dorms notably look bad, they might get a bad impression of the school, even subconsciously and end up going somewhere else. And if too many students decide to live off campus, it messes with student activities and general sense of school pride (which also messes with future alumni donations) and with the school's bottom line.
While they don't get money, the athletes at top schools do get compensated in plenty of ways, including tuition, access to world class facilities, and individualized attention from coaches and staff.
https://www.housebeautiful.com/promotions/g21086931/best-col...
Just a little bit of context as far as "luxury dorms" go since I see WashU at the top of almost every list. Maybe luxury means your plumbing doesn't break when it gets cold and you don't get athlete's foot from the showers in the shared bathroom.
But they are seeing some pushback, with $1000/month price tags. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-06-07/texas-a-m...