Do business schools practice what they preach?

Couple of weeks ago, I had an interesting meeting with the dean of a very reputed business school in the UK. Among other things, we discussed outsourcing of business processes at B schools - and in particular, outsourcing of three processes. These three processes are admissions, career management & alumni management.

I was of the view that B schools (and indeed the education sector as a whole) should focus on their core activities and outsource the above business processes to specialized entities. Doing so would enable creation of shared services, thereby reducing costs and improving service. As an example, even the top business schools in the UK are not able to attract all the MBA recruiters, run their own career management & alumni management platforms and discourage their students/alumni from networking with others through formation of a closed network- precisely opposite of what is taught in B school curriculum! Outsourcing career & alumni management would enable the school to focus its activities on advice related to networking career management, thereby enabling its students to differentiate themselves (improve service) and reduce the staff employed in these areas (reduce cost), while leaving the operational apsects of alumni/career management (eg organizaing recruitment, organizing alumni events etc) to shared services provider, who can provide access to larger pool of alumni / recruiters due to economies of scale (improved service again).

While the dean agreed with me on the above in so far as the admission process went, he had concerns about outsourcing the other two processes. Further probing revealed that the concerns were primarily of 'ego' nature - the school had invested in making MBAs out of ordinary people and thus, the school 'owned' those relationships, irrespective of whether such ownership made any commercial sense. There was also the small matter of alumni donations, though it escapes me as to how an e-mail direct from school would build the relationship, while the same e-mail sent 'on behalf of the school' by a third party would starve the school of any donation which the alumnus may choose to make. Of course, the view point of the customer (the students / alumni in this instance) was neither sought nor considered. Does it sound similar to how a CEO makes decision on his/her pet project in your organization?