What article are we taking about? The response to “shock and awe” was rescind offers to students, not cut down on administrators or address inefficiencies.
That’s a temporary measure. The universities know that in he long run they need students but can cut administrators. But at least the immediate reaction is controlling costs rather than geering up to lobby and litigate their way out of it.
The US has a peculiar culture where elite academic institutions are very much willing to limit their numbers of students, so it's not clear to me that they will in the long run control costs. Large, prestigious US universities have historically preferred funding more administrators over more students.
Those elite universities are less like schools and more like towns, so the focus is not just on teaching students but on maintaining a community. Sometimes that means protecting the people you have at the expense of people you haven't met yet. In many cases, "more administrators" translates to "better town services", so it's nor surprising to me the preference to cut enrollment.
