At least in the U.S., we can’t even get that to work in K-12.
@skyoverme, feel free to believe what you want to believe. I think that goals of various actors are fairly obvious from the actions/policies they take.
“We have to decide if college is really just all about being a trade school and “maximizing revenue” or if it is about giving people an education.”
We do? Why should 3000 institutions all have the same goal? As far as I can tell, they serve lots of different missions in lots of different ways.
Precisely! People have different goals, based on their value system. That’s why the perpetual question here (what’s the best school?) is so dependent upon the individual…their circumstances and their ultimate goals.
I suggest checking out your high school’s mission statement. Years ago, our district spent a lot of time coming up with its mission statement. At the time I didn’t understand why they were spending so much time and resources developing it. Afterwards, school administrators would quote parts of it so frequently the students would laugh. Some of the phrases (self-directed learners, collaborative workers, community contributors) became a familiar mantra to the students. However, now I see the value of the mission statement and its guiding principles. I am extremely grateful for the education that my children have received.
Now back to the OP’s observation. I guess, that as a parent of 2 (who will be paying the extra $5k/yr for each of them) I see myself as the consumer. I decide if I am willing to pay ‘extra’ for their degrees. If not, I can choose to go elsewhere.
We chose to run ‘comparables’ for their major (business at UIUC $140k vs U of Mich $220k), when selecting a college. Right or wrong, return on investment (ROI) was definitely a factor when making our decision. If that puts us in the camp of viewing higher education as “white collar training”, so be it. 
“It is so cute that some people think that the goal of the college is to maximize revenue. I don’t see how that squares with providing scholarships, having really small classes in less popular degrees, and why they aren’t auctioning off admission to the highest bidders.”
The goal of the college is to bring in sufficient revenue to meet its institutional goals. As one admissions dean said “if there’s no margin, then there’s no mission.”
Dollars from full payors, donations and endowment can be used to enable discounts to smart kids or needy kids or “whatever the school wants” kids.
Ferrari limits supply and has high demand\can charge whatever they want. They have multi-year waiting lists for most models. I’m a car guy so you are in over your head here. Are they expensive to build–yes but also have large profit per car.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/48c59732-9891-11e3-a32f-00144feab7de.html
You can apply same thinking to high demand high cost high payoff (salary) college majors.