RETAINING EARNINGS. It's a good idea for a business. The rules for higher education are different.

Why don't public colleges and universities salt away large sums of cash during good times to tide them over during bad times? Because the internal politics won't allow large sums to sit undisturbed. Because the external politics are such that when times get bad, legislators see those reserves as excuses to cut funding. (Apparently now in Massachusetts, the state is even applying this to endowments at private universities!)

Imagine, though, if a well-regarded and flush with cash private university used some of its retained earnings to set up a new campus. Cross-subsidy! Predation! Entrenchment! (I'm only half kidding: I have seen scholarly works suggesting that Philip Morris, by disinvesting in cigarettes, which is what happens when it buys Miller Beer, was lessening competition in brewing.)