In what insane version of the economy is it greed to run a business to make a profit? The lack of understanding of how the economy works on here is absolutely terrifying sometimes.
It's a whole other argument that until Blair came into power the education system was viewed as an education system. What it's now become is a cutthroat business model that aims to process as many students through its doors as possible, like a baked bean factory, irrespective of whether they are suited to or can benefit from HE.
On top of this we now have STEM and the arts and humanities periodically played off against one another to accommodate that business model: STEM being expensive to teach and A&H, being less so, achieving the 'bums on seats' objective.
Now we have a glut of graduates from those disciplines and not enough from STEM (predicably), the latter are now being told their degrees are the only ones worth having and the former that they've studied a 'Mickey Mouse' subject (this includes English and History graduates) and as a consequence have a lesser value in the labour market.
All this is inevitable when government policy loses sight of what higher education is actually for. Wait and see what happens when venues like art galleries and museums can no longer be maintained in the wake of the Covid mess, or theatres are closing hand over fist (a good many of them already being under imminent threat). It's not all about economics. Cultural impoverishment is still a form of impoverishment.
The 'why not teach offline' conundrum is really simple. If universities offer no face to face teaching and move to an online only model, there'll be an unholy rumpus about students being charged £9K PA in tuition fees, and pressure will start to mount to offer a reduction. Indeed, that's already happening. The universities, in terms of cuts to HEFCE funding etc., simply can't afford that. Not in terms of PR, and certainly not in monetary terms. We've just had the predicable email that despite our hard work and all pulling together in the face of this crisis, there will be no inflation-based pay rises this year.
I'm afraid any consideration for students' wellbeing doesn't come into it as far as VCs (who net a huge annual salary) and university/faculty management are concerned. It's all about the money.