Ivy League vs Public Institution Databases

[Joe]

My wife works at URI so I can peruse the library database for cool stuff to read or download to my Kindle.
I like early 19th Century American Criticism & Writing and I'm also interested in early 20th Century Modernism, particularly the work of fine artists and literary work of the Bloomsbury Group.
If you were writing a masters thesis or a doctoral dissertation on either of these topics, and you were a Brown student, compared to a URI student, the resources available to you as a Brown student absolutely dwarf the resources available to you as a URI student.
Which got me thinking.....Why?
Why hold back the ability of an individual to obtain the resources available to do their best work?
How does that serve society?
They are already turning away 90%+ of the people who apply. Their endowments are huge. They enjoy tax free status.
Dispense with the elitism, open the floodgates, democratize access to knowledge so people who are working can fulfill their potential. This would represent a huge step forward with respect to our standing in the academic world in one fell swoop.