I can speak to these issues a little bit:
As far as endowments go, the posters mentioning that most of those funds are earmarked or reserved is true. Just as a neat history lesson: Many universities in the Big Ten have huge endowments, and many of those funds come from really cool historical events.
For example, Michigan has a METRIC TON of money for a combination of reasons:
1.) Detroit used to generate a ****-load of wealth for America, in particular the auto industry. The state university system benefited tremendously from that and from wealthy donors and alumni. Cal-Berkeley has had a very similar development path over the years, and the two universities are often thought of as being equal to each other.
2.) Michigan is enormous and has a huge alumni base. Many of these alums, over the last 120-odd years, have done quite well. Remember, at a time when many of the elite Ivy League's and other private universities on the East Coast had quotas or outright banned Jews, women, and other groups of students, Michigan did not. And, it was cheaper. Other than the cost, Northwestern and a bunch of other Big Ten schools (particularly the ones in the Eastern half of our conference) were able to attract a lot of smart people living in the massive East Coast cities or in Chicago to attend their universities for far less money, and they provided essentially the same level of education as any Ivy League school. This was definitely a part of the late 19th-early 20th Century Progressive movement, which definitely took root in the Midwest. Bob LaFollette, of Wisconsin, is heavily associated with the University of Wisconsin and progressive politics in particular that allowed education to be accessible to the masses instead of just an elite thing.
3.) A lot of these universities hold patents on things that generate or used to generate a ton of money. Wisconsin invented Vitamin D milk. Michigan has invented a ton of ****. While the university holds a patent, they rake in the money for the invention.
Now, as far as Athletics goes, I know that Nebraska's is all self-funded, and while it is not impossible to use university dollars for what is technically a university program, they tend to not do that because A.) they don't need the money and B.) Many of the funds they could use are restricted or come with a loooot of red tape. We became an excellent program through, in part, very canny negotiations that got us great television contracts and earned us a lot of money at a time when many teams hand't figured that out yet. Not only that, but we have a healthy donor base, and we're now a part of the wealthiest conference in college football (see above).
This is why I say, we will be fine. All they have to do is make the decision to start building.
