I think when people think about universities, they think of Harvard and Stanford, but there are a lot more schools like (for example) Middle Tennessee University. These are schools that extract Harvard-like rents without the prestige or quality, and these will be the ones that go down. Harvard and its ilk will likely survive the next millennium.

Harvard is older than the US, and frankly does at least seem better-aligned to its original goals (training Puritan ministers!) than the US does.

If you ignore the whole education thing, universities are organizations that aim to preserve their own existence (like religions) rather than return money to shareholders (like companies)