re: I don’t get why it is more costly for colleges to educate students now vs the 70s/80s

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Is it also due professor salary/lecturer salary increases?

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While there may be more faculty and instruction than say twenty years ago wages have not increased at the same rate as administration costs. If anything colleges are finding more ways to stretch or reduce faculty and instruction costs. Faculty retirements replaced with adjuncts and instructors, with VAPs positions used to fill gaps without losing talent. Or just flat out sit on open tenure-track lines for as long as possible before needing to approve advancing the hiring process.

Faculty, especially untenured assistant professors and lower, make so much less that you think they do.

When student loans were taken over by the government what the hell did people think would happen? You think a private lender would give someone 150K for a gender studies or sociology degree? Yeah right, no private lender in their right mind would put that kind of money on the table for a bullshite degree. When Government took over student loans universities realized they could charge through the nose for even useless degree programs. As a university why wouldn't you then put as many kids in even if they are not college material in classes? They will get their money regardless. It is a big scam all of it. Sadly, stupid sons of bitches like you voted for the guy who is going to try and forgive some or much of that debt that some people with useless degrees hold. So on behalf of America frick you you fricking frick.

Pretty sure that disinvestment in higher education began around that time (primarily due to the recession). Many people used to go to non-private colleges on the cheap back then when the states funded them to where it wouldn’t be so expensive.

College tuition and fees are higher for many reasons:

- decrease in state appropriations to schools, essentially shifting from tax payer funded to user funded

- increase in amenities, from workout/sports facilities to information technology to nicer housing

- increased access to student loans

-increased demand for college educations

-bloated admin

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I don’t get why it is more costly for colleges to educate students now vs the 70s/80s

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Have you ever seen a university 40 years ago? No Rec center with lazy rivers. Share a room with 3 three people, and the whole floor shares a bathroom. No cafeteria on the weekend.

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Explain to me why a school like LSU could give a 1970s student a 4 year education/degree at 4 times less the cost as a 2022 student

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I don’t have data for the 70’s, but I found data going back to the 90’s on revenue by source at LSU.

The unrestricted revenue, which is the general fund that includes tuition and state funding, was..

Unrestricted Revenue:
1994 - $211,720,580
2019 - $566,408,526

Here’s what that looks like in 2019 dollars, once you adjust for inflation.

Unrestricted Revenue (2019 Dollars):
1994 - $365,235,143
2019 - $566,408,526

Still looks like the school is spending a lot more money. But full-time enrollment was 19,703 in 1994. Full-time enrollment was 27,225 in 2019.

Unrestricted Revenue per Full-Time Student (2019 Dollars):
1994 - $18,537
2019 - $20,805

That still doesn’t tell the entire story for a couple of reasons:
- Part-time enrollment was also higher in 2019
- Inflation adjustment via CPI doesn’t do a great job of capturing increases in technology costs.

That being said, I think this is close enough to get the point across. Funding per student has increased, but nowhere near as much as tuition. Which brings me to the next point..

Unrestricted Revenue per Full-Time Student, by Source (2019 Dollars):

1994 Tuition & Fees - $6,417
1994 State Appropriations - $10,668
1994 Other - $1,452

2019 Tuition & Fees - $15,121
2019 State Appropriations - $5,162
2019 Other - $522

(Note that this is not intended to represent the exact full-time tuition rate. It’s just the total revenue divided by the number of full-time students. Actual full-time tuition should be lower on average because of part-time students.)

In 1994 tuition and fees made up 35% of the unrestricted budget while state appropriations made up 58%. In 2019, tuition and fees made up 73% of the unrestricted budget while state appropriations made up 25%.

State appropriations in 2021 were less than half of what they were in 1994, when adjusted for inflation.

So the gist of it is - yeah, the university’s inflation-adjusted operating cost per full-time student increased by $2,268 from 1994 to 2019. Meanwhile, state funding decreased by $5,506 per full time student over the same time period.

It’s certainly fair to look at the increase in operating costs and question whether the university is being efficient. But if you’re asking why tuition has increased, the #1 reason is that the costs have been shifted from tax dollars to tuition dollars.

I don’t expect that everyone will look at this as a bad thing, as many may feel that the students/families should bear the brunt of the cost. That’s a perfectly valid opinion. The numbers only tell part of the story when you have the TOPS elephant in the room, as well. I’m just trying to point out the reality of why tuition costs have increased so much.

Government subsidized loans.

When you allow nearly unlimited government funds into a business, management expands.

Lazy rivers, apartment-style dorms, Office of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion, etc. These extras that schools have now don't get paid for with wishful thinking. Hell, here's $400k-$500k per year being spent now which wasn't deemed as necessary until the last twenty years or so.

Here's just the top level org chart for LSU: LINK It would be interesting to see how different the one from 1970 or 1980 looked. I imagine there wouldn't be quite as many positions. If you were to drill down, I imagine you would see even larger discrepancies between the amount of non-teaching employees now versus then.

If there were no government backing the supposed student loan crisis would not even be an issue. Why get a college degree that you can't pay off?

Better yet, why should my money be used to pay for your poor choice in msjors?

The administration’s have grown exponentially.


There was a breakdown of the cost at Ohio State diversity and inclusion and I think it was 30 million a year.