This style of consulting is usually a performative act because the people who should be making decisions don't have or don't feel like they have the authority to make decisions.
Paying $X million for an outside consultancy to come up with the decision, gives the decision authority. Of course, the consultancy is usually guided to the 'right' decision, either implicitly or explicitly. Although sometimes you see failures of guidance, where against incentives the consultancy delivers a good recommendation and then it's usually ignored.
Anyway, this is a grift, but who's going to turn down $1M to tell someone what they already know?
IMHO, the more grifty consultancy is systems building, where you set up a $10M contract over ten years to build a system that doesn't work and doesn't actually replace the old system. But maybe that's just performative too: nobody wants to say to just keep the old system, so spending time and money on something everyone knows won't work and won't be ready before you leave makes it look like you're doing the right thing?
There's also non-grift consulting. You might pay a real expert a reasonable sum for an engineering consult, etc.
Closing an academic program, let alone 32, will be extremely unpopular among faculty so much so that it might lead to a vote of no confidence. Using a consulting firm as a political shield is likely necessary if you want to make such a move and maintain your position as president.
You pay the consulting firm ~ 1 million, they confirm what you already know, "these 32 programs are costing the University 10 million or whatever a year with few enrollments. The only logical thing to do is to close those programs and reallocate those funds." You, as the president, hide behind a report from an independent third party but still get to make the correct but unpopular opinion to cut bloat.
Paying $X million for an outside consultancy to come up with the decision, gives the decision authority. Of course, the consultancy is usually guided to the 'right' decision, either implicitly or explicitly. Although sometimes you see failures of guidance, where against incentives the consultancy delivers a good recommendation and then it's usually ignored.
Anyway, this is a grift, but who's going to turn down $1M to tell someone what they already know?
IMHO, the more grifty consultancy is systems building, where you set up a $10M contract over ten years to build a system that doesn't work and doesn't actually replace the old system. But maybe that's just performative too: nobody wants to say to just keep the old system, so spending time and money on something everyone knows won't work and won't be ready before you leave makes it look like you're doing the right thing?
There's also non-grift consulting. You might pay a real expert a reasonable sum for an engineering consult, etc.