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From the university administration point of view, the point of a professor is to bring in funding.

Teaching is a necessary evil, but hardly the primary interest.

If only the intersection of prestigious universities with "teaching colleges" were higher.

I think a big part of the reason for the prestige is the fact that path breaking research comes out of those universities. So it's kind of hard to weigh teaching heavily when choosing profs and still expect to have a prestigious university.

> The point of a professor at a research university is to interact with graduate students

lol no—at an R1 university the point of the professor is to publish their own research. Managing grad students is just another obligation to be avoided when inconvenient.

The grad students do a lot of the professor's own research.

If grad students aren't doing 50-90% of the work related to a professor's research, then they are doing it wrong.