How much money does a "World class" university cost/need/want?

A lot!
This is a fact that I feel politicians who fund public universities just do not appreciate.
Here is a statistic that I find mind boggling.
Princeton University now has an endowment of $17.1 billion dollars!

Aside: the graph above shows how the endowment is now above pre-GFC levels.

What does that mean? Well, the university only has 5,000 undergraduates and 2,500 grad students. That means the average endowment per student is more than $2 million!
[This is the highest per student endowment in the world].
The university aims to spend the endowment at a rate of 4-5.75% on the annual operating budget. That means about $100 K per year is being contributed (indirectly) towards each students education. For reference annual tuition is about $36 K. Room and board are a further $12K per year.