I'm betting people will say administration, but I don't think even the swarms of useless educrats can account for the entire difference. Other possibilities:

I'm betting people will say administration, but I don't think even the swarms of useless educrats can account for the entire difference. Other possibilities: Direct funding from states to public universities has decreased. Some portion of tuition increase has gone to replace the revenue lost from reduction in subsidies. Capital costs from new campus buildings have gone up, as universities add expensive features that are not strictly required for education, such as apartment-style dormitories, or luxurious fitness centers for faculty and students. The university's money is usually fungible, so housing and recreation fees may be higher for students using those buildings than for the palmetto-bug dorms and century-old fieldhouse, yet still subsidized out of tuition revenue. The aforementioned swarms of useless educrats may be corrupt, diverting university revenues to their own pockets via schemes that require their academic credentials or administrative authority. Universities may be underwriting student loan debt, trading cash now for future income streams from future repayment. In that case, the money isn't even there yet, and the students first have to graduate and start earning before there is any of that money to spend. I know that Indiana University dumped a lot of money into its "18/20" retirement plan, to attract better quality professors. It sounds very expensive. At some point, they realized it would bankrupt the university, and stopped offering it, but current students will still be paying for it until all those old professors that got it die off. So, maybe tuition increases are going to retired employees. Last, we have accounting fictions. Universities charge $X on paper, to receive or maximize some third-party benefit, then rebate $Y to the student in the form of grants or scholarships. The money was never there, except on paper.