Yes. University level teaching needs to be done by academics, otherwise it wouldn't be university level, but it doesn't have to be done in universities.
Or, to put it another way, the problem is not that academics do research, it's that no-one else has read and understands the relevant literature to be able to teach up-to-date at that level.
Why not create a university that gets good academics who can also teach (train them if necessary) and pays them good money to do the teaching well. They would continue to do research somewhere else. That somewhere else would be a university with grad students, but no under-grads, and it would pay on the basis of research alone, with no internal teaching.
Or, to put it another way, the problem is not that academics do research, it's that no-one else has read and understands the relevant literature to be able to teach up-to-date at that level.
Why not create a university that gets good academics who can also teach (train them if necessary) and pays them good money to do the teaching well. They would continue to do research somewhere else. That somewhere else would be a university with grad students, but no under-grads, and it would pay on the basis of research alone, with no internal teaching.