Armies of administrators, shiny new amenities to attract more students (competing on quality of education is too difficult / more expensive). There's probably some good that it goes towards too, but its hard not to be cynical about it.
Then there are other leaks, like $50k/yr hosting bills for a CMS serving under 200k pageviews per day, or other ancillary a11y compliance tools that cost nearly as much. If there is budget, it has to be spent.
At this point, my feeling is that the local maximumizations that have driven us to this point are irrecoverable. There is no “fixing” this system. It will carry on for a while yet out of momentum, but something disruptive will dethrone it eventually.