US universities are becoming for profit institutions using non-profit status to cook the books.
And even with all that universities still have better a more altruistic profit alignment than most private firms.
People keep trotting this line but without any substantial proof. Harvard's highest paid employee is a faculty member, David Malan, of the popular CS50 course earning $1.6 million annually [1]. It's always been faculty members earning even more than the President.
I assume you're counting Harvard Management Company, the firm managing Harvard's endowment. Yeah, the CEO earns $9 million annually, which is quite high [2]. But there's a catch; were he in the private industry managing a $50 billion+ fund, he'll easily clear $50 million+ in annual compensation, if not $100 million depending on the performance.
The endowment managers operate differently from the institution, and salaries are actually much lower than in the private sector. Maybe you want to complain about inequality, sure, but that's another thing entirely. They're paying the least they can to get expert fund managers..
1- https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/421...
2- https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/237...
Some overhead is necessary of course, you need buildings and offices and the people who take care of them but it's likely more bloated than it needs to be.
I saw them take 60% as overhead at one of my institutions.
I know of some institutions with F&A rates at or above 70%!! I presume that an institution trying to negotiate a higher F&A rate than this would have some significant pushback!