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Eugine_Nier comments on Rationality Quotes December 2013 - Less Wrong
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College tuition inflation is often talked about but rarely dealt with sensibly. To understand the nature and extent of college tuition inflation, it's important to understand
Looking at the sticker price isn't comparing apples to apples. Aid has gone up drastically. It's never been cheaper for a kid from a poor family to get an education. Although a lot of the increases at state schools relate to decreasing funding, a huge amount of them at private schools (and a lesser extent at state schools) is their financial aid programs. Tuition has become more progressive and we're comparing the top prices.
Running a college is about as labor-intensive as it ever has been, which is to say, very. Prices in all labor-intensive stuff have gone up faster than CPI.
There has been a real increase, but it's not all real and it's not all for the reasons a lot of people assume.
But if you're middle class the price has gone up and may be unaffordable.
And the ratio of administrators to professors has also exploded.
My basic point was just the fact that the numbers we compare have nothing to do with each other. (The really don't.)
The number of administrators, as traditionally defined, has changed little, though the number of professional staff has increased a lot. The biggest increase has been the growth of IT, though it goes beyond that. The part of this which is IT-related is somewhat mirrored by most other labor-intensive stuff.