Law professor Paul F. Campos, writing in The New York Times about “The Real Reason College Tuition Costs So Much” : “If over the past three decades car prices had gone up as fast as tuition, the average new car would cost more than $80,000.”
The real reason, Campos explains (and which should be no surprise to anyone who has observed the workings of colleges from the inside): the growth of administration and administrative salaries. Vice presidencies, directorships, and assistants to assistants to assistants. I’m exaggerating, but not by much.
[The real reason? At least a real reason. Campos could also consider amenities: increasingly lavish recreation centers and such. And lack of public funding has hurt higher education.]
Sunday, April 5, 2015
The rising cost of college
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comments: 5
Skimming this, I thought it read,
"Vice presidencies, dictatorships..."
Like the new dorm underway at the University of Chicago:
http://www.uchicago.edu/features/university_unveils_new_residence_hall_and_dining_commons/
So unlike the cinderblock box I lived in, where the main amenity was a courtyard and a lounge that had an ancient TV set and nothing else.
No, not trying to sound like a jealous old codger.
(Disclaimer: NOT a fan of Jean Gang/Studio Gang. At. All.)
P.S. Are you sure it's not the cost of lavish salaries and benefits for adjunct instructors? /sarcasm
With public schools, I would guess another cause is state subsidies that have either not kept pace with inflation or even been cut. Schools have to find the money elsewhere, and tuition is the easiest route. Plus, schools seem to be relentlessly upgrading their facilties, in some sort of competitive arms race that can only end badly.
One more thing: College is marketed as an experience not an education. You can't have an "experience" in a cinderblock box but only in a Gang Studio cookie cutter, er, architectural masterpiece with amenities like most of us apartment dwellers don't have in our own homes. :)
(My I'm not a robot phrase included "ignorance.")
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