Right? I've thought about this as well. My guess is that:
1) Nearly all university students are making their decision when they're 18, so a lot of them are mostly interested in non-academic aspects of their school
2) It seems really hard to actually start a new university. Anecdotally, every university I can think of is quite old.
3) This is probably related to (2). The benefits of universities aren't really dependent on good professors. The advantage of top schools in both educational progress and student outcomes can probably mostly explained by signalling, filtering out weak students before they arrive, university culture, and networking. None of this has much to do with professors.
> filtering out "weak" students before they arrive
This has a huge effect on pushing schools to the top. You can take a public institution (eg University of Washington, since they're notorious for this), put an artificially high bar on entering a program (eg UW CSE since, again, notoriety), and take in all the public money you want while only admitting the top 10% of students. The school is happy for the brain blast, the state is happy to fund a "prestigious" university, and the people are happy to fund so many smart students attending their university instead of another. Everyone wins, right?
Wrong. One of the many problems with this technique is how a university quantifies what is considered a "weak student". Is it low test scores? Bad entrance essay? No planning on the part of the student? Whatever Pearson Hall or McGraw Hill will set on their outsourcing offerings? It's a giant can of worms in terms of what individual strengths and weaknesses are, and how they can either enhance or limit academic performance.
1) Nearly all university students are making their decision when they're 18, so a lot of them are mostly interested in non-academic aspects of their school
2) It seems really hard to actually start a new university. Anecdotally, every university I can think of is quite old.
3) This is probably related to (2). The benefits of universities aren't really dependent on good professors. The advantage of top schools in both educational progress and student outcomes can probably mostly explained by signalling, filtering out weak students before they arrive, university culture, and networking. None of this has much to do with professors.