I never had a problem with professors being paid well. I don't know what the national average is, but for a full professor I think the average salary was around 90k in Ohio. That seems a bit low in my opinion for the most educated and arguably most intelligent people in our society. My issue with college tuition is how every school creates these bullshit disciplines that will never lead to a job (you know the ones) and how these 400 level classes of 7-10 people amount to drawing a picture of your feelings all subsidized by the tuition of students earning real degrees. Granted, in a POLS 200 class the professor wanted us to draw a picture or a poem on our feelings or in a Sociology class I literally got away with singing Madagascar over a very early fan rendition after the band played the song in 2002 as my interpretation of "notes from the underground." I obviously never opened the book once I knew I could do that.
I have nothing against social sciences or liberal arts degrees, but there needs to be some reality interjected into the curriculum. Yes, one of the major purposes of a liberal arts degree is "enlightenment", but you also need to be able to secure a job and contribute. Allowing someone to go 100k in debt to get a degree in Women's Studies is ethically suspect in my opinion. The use of student loans has allowed universities to bloat and charge way more than they need to in order to stay solvent. We say healthcare shouldn't be for profit, but our public education systems are just that.
I obviously can't speak for every school, but we have programs like women's studies, American studies, Africana studies, and international studies, but they're all interdisciplinary, so they offer maybe an intro and a capstone, but otherwise use courses from other departments to fill out their major. So, for example, my Intro to International Relations class can count toward the international studies major. But if you're creating a whole new department, then there had better be the demand for it.
I like small classes, especially at the 300/400 level. But they should also be intensive and challenging. My lone 300 level offering currently has 21 students, which is fine because it's enough for good discussions.
When I think university costs, my first finger pointing is at administration. I have an email in my inbox from the "Interim Senior Associate Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs." Yeah. If that doesn't tell you we've over done the university bureaucracy, I don't know what will. New construction is also big but that usually helps meet some need/demand and is often covered at least in major part by a school's endowment.
While I don't find universities (at least the three i've attended or worked at) to be the left-wing indoctrination facilities that they're often accused of being, they are full of liberals and liberals love solving problems, usually with new and more rules and structures. Thus, you end up with Interim Senior Associate Vice Chancellors. For fuck's sake.
We need to keep costs down and you can't do it on the backs of your teachers. Without them, there is no university. No one comes to a school because it has a great administration or wonderful Office for Diversity. Not to mention that professors are pretty fucking smart and capable and probably don't need all those damned rules in order to do something well (though a little structure is warranted because we tend to be a head-in-the-clouds bunch).