This is spot on. An anecdote from my undergrad studies and living in Madison, WI: the UW has a division of housing, which provides (shoddy) canvas carts to the students to use for moving in/out of the dorms. My student organization happened to "acquire" some of these carts, and when using one I was confronted by none other than the director of housing, who promptly called the police on me. In the end I was happy to return it and he asked the police not to press charges on the condition that I help him walk the cart back to the dorm where it belonged. He told me that people stealing the carts drives him crazy because they cost about $800 each because there's a complicated bidding process to even attempt to sell them to the school! I told him I'd be happy to go to the Home Depot and bang some together if he paid me half that for carts.