Administrative bloat is the culprit on the spending end. You'd think that the increased spending would go to hiring professors and improving academic life. But

Administrative bloat is the culprit on the spending end. You'd think that the increased spending would go to hiring professors and improving academic life. But instead, the administrative bureaucracies are sucking up all of the money and wasting it on pet projects and excess labor. Basically, all of the mismanagement that people associate with government applies to colleges as well. They have guaranteed revenue, so they have no incentive to control costs. Project planning and approval are more about politics than about cost and value. Leadership is weak and more interested in covering their own asses than in making the right decisions. There's constant mission creep, with colleges strangely obsessed with running all aspects of students' lives. Adding new spending is easy, but eliminating existing programs is near-impossible. The workers are unionized, and are often able to recruit naive students to their protests against any cost-control measures. At my college, there was an administrative department for every kind of minority, each with its own budget and staff. What goes in inside of these departments is its own scandal. Some were far-left outfits that spread the toxic identity politics that's been in the news lately. That's not the kind of instruction that parents think they're paying for. The government needs to stop its irresponsible loan and grant programs. Colleges need to refocus on academics and basic services for students. The only way they will do that is if they are forced to justify their costs on the market.