This seems to be a much better explanation than the article provides, which seems to be along the lines of "the smart people teaching in college must be paid a

This seems to be a much better explanation than the article provides, which seems to be along the lines of "the smart people teaching in college must be paid a lot." The answer to the question posed by the headline is: It isn't. The correct question would be "Why does College cost so much IN THE US?," which implies there's a fundamental difference between the higher education system of the United States vs. that of a large part of the world. You COULD claim that professors in other countries are being paid ridiculously low wages, but this sounds far fetched. A much more convincing explanation, in my opinion, would involve the difference in the way the economy of higher education works in the US versus other parts of the world.