"Giant donations, he’s come to realize, often increase the university’s bills, generating new operating expenses for projects that may have only tenuous links to the university’s core mission. The new fixed costs cannibalize existing funding streams, increasing pressure to grow revenue."
'He remembers the quip from a former dean: “The endowment is the gift that keeps on taking.”'
I was working in digital libraries circa 2005 and we had that bubble pop when people understood the business model was "get a $100,000 grant and spend $20,000 a year maintaining the product in perpetuity." I tried to convince management that if these were part of a system designed for maintenance in mind we could get that $20,000 to $500-$2000 a year, but it seemed the institutional response to this situation was "let go of the most productive people and keep the least."