These comparisons are good for giggles and I agree that more transparency is better than none at all. Nevertheless, you’re right: it’s easy to take them too literally. For example, it would be easy to conclude from looking at the Bowdoin Orient article that Wesleyan University spends less money on faculty than just about any other NESCAC when, in fact, according to the latter’s 2018-2019 Annual Report, its instructional payroll is about 4Xs larger ($105M vs. $27M using Bowdoin as a comparison):
The complicating factor, of course, is that Wesleyan University has nearly twice as many students as Bowdoin.
So, you can hone your accounting skills as much as you like, it’s still going to come down to whether you like one college’s total resources, “vibe”, or spikey department, over the other.