To professors. Duh.

I don't know where to start, and I'm not sure I want to ...

I just had a look at my social security statement. Like most in my profession (who have secure TE jobs) my income has increased more than most in the US over the last 20 years, and this despite working at a state institution that has reduced the real value of it's appropriation per student substantially over the past 35 years. What a shock. The return to a BA, relative to a HS degree has soared since 1980. Ditto for the return to an advanced degree. Schools hire in a national labor market.

Schools that have no way to get more revenue per student have had to deal with this cost push factor by economizing on labor use. This is the source of "adjunctification," which has hit less selective schools and community colleges the hardest. And that doesn't do any good for the low-income, 1st generation students who cluster at those schools.

I would also point out to Mr. Cuban that a lot of resources are going into non-instructional support services, and into "administrators" like IT personnel (who do everything from maintaining our mainframes to making our online offerings run), counseling and career advising, and compliance (mandated by the gummint).

I would tell Mr. Cuban that there is solid evidence that at many less-selective schools, a dollar spent on student support does more for retention and graduation than spending that same dollar on instruction (my salary). So tuition $$ spent on something other than professors or teaching assistants can be money well spent.

btw in case it wasn't obvious my comment was a bit tongue-in-cheek. Though it's true that in most universities I'm aware of (primarily public) the vast majority of expenses go directly to salaries.

And P*D's point about "administrative" salaries (note, this doesn't necessarily mean administrators) is good. Contained in "admnistrative" salaries are IT but also academic counselors, admissions personnel, financial aid counselors, career counselors, medical personnel, psychologists, etc., all of whose target clientele are the students at the university.