Olin is a really interesting concept and experiment, but over a decade into the process its class size is still under 100. It’s not educating a lot of people.
It’s interesting to me that in the second half of the 19th Century, so many rich people decided to preserve their legacies by creating major universities – something you clearly could do if you were an ultra-wealthy person then, although often with a good deal of public support. Cornell, Duke (a “takeover” of a small existing college), Vanderbilt, Stanford, Chicago, USC, Clark, WUStL (really, its expansion), Carnegie-Mellon (separately, at first), Brandeis (a little later), and all of the Seven Sisters. All of that happened at the same time most of the public land grant universities were being established. For the most part, they really did create amazing institutions. But I guess I can see how today’s ultra rich are content to drop a few score millions to get their names on residential colleges at their alma maters, and they don’t really think the U.S. is so lacking in universities that it would be worth the $15-20 billion it would probably take to start a new major one. But how about Africa? Asia?