I know you are making a joke, but for people who may not understand: The point is that well regarded Universities in the USA are generally old relative to other institutions in the USA. So Stanford has a pretty campus on land that was purchased when hardly anyone lived in Palo Alto. Now that land is absurdly valuable.

As in the article, it changes how you might use the land. A grove is a beautiful place to go and read or relax. But if you could replace that grove with a structure worth of hundreds of millions of dollars it changes things.

It's the deed that's old; in the case of Columbia it's that it holds the northern half of the Anglican church's glebe[1] in Manhattan (Columbia is the largest private real estate owner in NYC), which is not only held tax-free but generates significant money for the University.

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glebe (for Northern Virginia residents who have always wondered)