But small liberal arts colleges are the places that already do primarily prioritize teaching, and expect professors to do relatively little research. Professors typically teach more courses per semester than at research universities, and are hired and promoted primarily based on teaching ability rather than research portfolio. This was the case at the Claremont Colleges, at least, where I went for undergrad; most professors just did a little research on the side, maybe one paper a year, and spent nearly full-time teaching. They're expensive mainly because they have very small class sizes (big emphasis on small discussion seminars), and typically much smaller endowments and fewer donations than the famous research universities do. Plus, since none of the salaries or lab facilities are paid for by research-grant money, those have to come out of tuition, too. And, since there are no grad students, professors typically do most of the teaching work themselves, rather than offloading a significant proportion to a TA, as is done at research universities: sections, tutorials, grading, office hours, etc. are all the professor's responsibility.
Big research universities, like MIT or Stanford or University of Texas or UCLA, are the ones that primarily emphasize research track record.