Colleges: Where the money goes
Athletic teams, administrators and tenured professors soak up huge chunks of colleges' budgets, and tuition and fees rise to keep up.
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At Pomona College, a top-flight liberal arts school, this year's sticker price for tuition and fees is a hefty $38,394 (not including room and board). Even after adjusting for inflation, that comes to 2.9 times what Pomona was charging a generation ago, in 1980.
This kind of massive tuition increase is the norm. In New England, Williams College charges $41,434, or an inflation-adjusted 3.2 times what it did 30 years ago. USC's current tab of $41,022 is a 3.6 multiple of its 1980 bill.
Tuition at public universities, in a time of ailing state budgets, has risen at an even faster rate. TheUniversity of Illinois' current $13,658 is six times its 1980 rate after adjusting for inflation. San Jose State's $6,250 is a whopping 11 times more.
If you look at how that added revenue is being spent, it's hard to argue that students are getting a lot of extra value for all that extra money. Why? Colleges aren't spending their extra revenues, which w
This kind of massive tuition increase is the norm. In New England, Williams College charges $41,434, or an inflation-adjusted 3.2 times what it did 30 years ago. USC's current tab of $41,022 is a 3.6 multiple of its 1980 bill.
Tuition at public universities, in a time of ailing state budgets, has risen at an even faster rate. TheUniversity of Illinois' current $13,658 is six times its 1980 rate after adjusting for inflation. San Jose State's $6,250 is a whopping 11 times more.
If you look at how that added revenue is being spent, it's hard to argue that students are getting a lot of extra value for all that extra money. Why? Colleges aren't spending their extra revenues, which w
Rick Perry
Education Blog: 
