> Harvard could easily accommodate 20,000 undergrads given the size and quality of its applicant pool.

Increasing the class size would be good.

But Danny Rubin isn't going to be able to teach screen writing to 120 kids instead of 12, even if he actually wanted to. RJ Tarrant can't expand his personal Classics section beyond 15.

And the undergraduate animal transplant surgery class (12-15 students)? How, pray tell, will that scale? If you wanted to 10x the size of the class... I don't know if there's a single place on Earth that conducts 10 transplants, human or large animal, in one building, at the same time.

Not everything can be scaled. Not even "not scalable" things can be scaled with money, even a lot of it.

A more interesting conversation is why nonetheless billionaires do a bad job at education, despite (not because of) all the money. I think this thinking is part of it. It also shows a lack of understanding of what makes Harvard special. It's not just "brand management."

Where do you expect Harvard could house the additional 13K undergrads near campus? I live walking distance to Harvard campus and I can tell you that I can't imagine a good answer.

(Unstated above is that I believe that undergrad is fundamentally an in-person experience.)

The US also gives nonprofit status to organizations that do stuff like buy expensive paintings and build megachurches. There's no general requirement that the nonprofits need to be using their money in the highest-utility manner. If such a requirement existed, I don't think elite universities should be the first organizations to crack down on.

> And that's perfectly fine.

Under capitalism. :)