re: What is the liberal explanation for why college costs have exploded?

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You just had to slip something in there about black people and diversity. It’s like an obsession and you couldn’t resist. T I’d like to see data ( the actual data) that supports your argument about administrative costs.

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I'm on my phone at the moment but when I'm back in front of a desktop I'll provide plenty of data. It's not exactly hidden information. The vast majority of new administrative positions are in progressive-liberal realms. A few decades ago there were no "diversity deans". Now almost every university has a diversity center, complete with a dean, cadre of staff, and all the administrative personnel that goes with it.

My wife is a professor at a small university here in the Northwest. Her campus's diversity center is a three story building with a staff of 24 full time workers. Their operating budget is larger than the college of business. In the coming two years there will be a dedicated $2M for "diversity education" programs, which will result in a $760 a semester increase in each student's tuition. This is happening over and over at schools across the country.

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That generation has only been voting for 3-4 election cycles and had pretty much zero say in legislation that was passed. It was their parents and grandparents idea.

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Yes. Democrats of their parent/grandparent generation pushed and passed the stupidity but today's college kids still 100% support those stupid policies and in fact, want them EXPANDED.

You can't gripe when you support it.

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Prices go up in direct response to the ability to charge the price.

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People are only going to pay for products that:
1)are in demand (like crazy accomodations).
2)they can pay for (but not necessarily afford).

Broadly, university costs are rising across the board because of the following reasons:

1. Subsidized loans and no risk assessment mechanism for those loans. It's been said in this thread before, but it needs to be repeated: a cheap and easy supply of money for university education means that there is virtually no resource rationing mechanism in the university-lender relationship. In addition, there is no interest rate mechanism that accounts for expected future income - a sociology major has the same access and interest rate as an accounting or chemical engineering major even though their projected salaries will be quite different.

2. Quite simply, demand for American higher education is still extremely high. Domestically, despite what all the "become a welder and make six figures, baw" types will have you believe, the expected lifetime earnings for a university-educated person still far, far outstrip those without degrees on average. The most recent data I saw was that college grads earn, on average, about $1 million more over the course of their lives than non-college grads (link). Because that is still the case and will likely be well into the future, in a way, universities are raising prices because they realize they still have significant pricing power because of that difference. As an extreme example, the Ivys and places like University of Chicago, Duke, Stanford, and the like could probably charge triple or more of what they currently do, and those degrees would still be worth it for marginal difference in lifetime income; universities that are still good but maybe not quite that caliber have that same pricing power, though to an obviously lesser degree.

Add on the fact that American universities are still seen as the crown jewel of the world and golden ticket outside of the country, and demand has sustained itself pretty much unabated.

3. Somewhat related to #2, but universities remain (and probably will continue to do so) the de facto certification process for most of the professional world. You have to have a B.S. or B.A. to even get in the door at any professional company. Until that changes (and it might be, but very slowly), demand won't really change much.

4. University education is like healthcare (for the most part) and housing in that it is not a tradeable good. There is very little international competition for American higher education, and supply has remained relatively flat, especially at the more elite levels of the system. If you could produce university educations in China and ship them over by the millions, price would probably be a lot more competitive. But you can't, so it doesn't happen.

Classic demand driven inflation due to ability to kick costs down the road with loans. Parents expect their little Brayden to be VP of IBM in 5 years with a degree from State U.

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Show me the last Republican or “conservative” that did anything to squash this problem

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Mitch Daniels, Purdue

Wikipedia

Tuition freezes and cost reductions
Edit
The total cost of attending Purdue has fallen since Daniels assumed Purdue's presidency, despite a trend at Big Ten institutions of rising costs. Total loan debt among the student body has also fallen 30% or $55 million.[120] Tuition at Purdue, prior to Daniels' arrival had increased every year since 1976.[121] Two months after Daniels assumed his role as president, Purdue announced it would freeze tuition for two years, eventually extending the freeze for six years, through 2019. As a result, multiple graduating classes have become the first in at least 40 years to leave Purdue having never experienced a tuition increase,[122][123] in-state tuition is more than $1,000 lower than if the university had raised rates at the national average, and students and families have saved more than $226 million in educational expenses.[124]

He was the Republican governor of Indiana before his stint at Purdue and was, at one time, a legit favorite to get the Republican Presidential nomination.

I’m not a liberal, but I have a prospective that most people don’t see everyday. My wife has been a professor for over 10 years(almost 11).

1. States are giving less money to public schools each year. In Missouri only two public universities were in the black last year.

2. If a new professor is hired today they start out about $10,000 less than she did 11 years ago. Colleges don’t pay teachers more most campuses are saving money on new hires. They save even more money by hiring 2 or 3 adjuncts instead of one new professor.

3. Prices for students continue to increase because it cost more for basic things(electric, sewage, food etc...).

There are many other reasons why prices continue to increase, but the main reason is cost living increases for colleges

I can tell you in CA at state universities retired professors can receive over $110k in pension benefits annually, that will have some bearing on rising tuition costs,