It's a gamble along the lines of "I bet I can invest money better than the bank". Often turns out the bank can invest money better. I wonder who convinced them to invest, er, gamble.
In the short term I'm sure it's true. But in the long term, banks have a major advantage over us mortals: they get bailed out. So I'd imagine they tend to win in the end.
Before we discuss more regulation of either banks or universities, perhaps we should first consider the extent to which we need more regulation of regulation.