"which I believe is due to bloated administration." In my state's public university system, the amount of funding provided by the state to that system per full

"which I believe is due to bloated administration." In my state's public university system, the amount of funding provided by the state to that system per full-time equivalent student has dropped to its lowest level (in 2017 according to the source I checked) since 1995. So the state commitment to funding is lower on a per-student basis. Universities have responded by raising tuition and other costs. All of those facts mean that the real, out-of-pocket cost to students has gone up. Looking at what information I can find on staff counts, the flagship state university data report in 1999/2000 shows a "grand total" of 10,000ish employees and a quick web search shows 13,000ish in 2023. I think we would have to slice and dice those numbers much better to see what the actual cost differences were for those two time periods. The number of students seems to have grown to about 128% of 1999/2000 total enrollment numbers to today's total. There is a deeper discussion to be had about the policy of funding state universities. Polls like the article show all segments of the public surveyed have declining confidence in higher education. That suggests to me that in general, people will be less inclined to have tax dollars invested into the public university system because they may see it as wasteful or not efficient. There is some much to unpack around universities and cost . . . and, of course, private university tuition costs have exploded. Although at those types of institutions, I think many non-name-brand (or non-ivy-ish) schools have a very high "sticker" cost that maybe no students actually pay . . .