> It was much easier to get money donated for a new building, than to maintain an old one, so you can have a situation in which new buildings are being built while old ones fall apart.
That seems logical enough to me.
I mean, if every new building is an unprofitable drag on university finances, they wouldn't be building more of them. At the very least a building should pay for its own upkeep, if not its original construction costs.
And given that the fundraising department will surely want to tell rich donors that buildings are good for the university, simultaneously saying that the previous buildings were all bad for the university would be a very confusing message.