University education is not a matter of forcing through the largest number of graduates at the lowest possible short-term cost. This would not serve the needs of the current generation of students and, even from a narrow economic viewpoint, it would not promote economic prosperity in the long term. It is often a poor economic practice to skimp on the production costs of a product, even when you are only interested in the eventual monetary profit to be made from it. But in any event university education has wider purposes than merely the promotion of economic prosperity.