One can easily see how high real estate prices can translate to all those being more expensive. Colleges pay rent. Colleges pay salaries to people who pay rent

One can easily see how high real estate prices can translate to all those being more expensive. Colleges pay rent. Colleges pay salaries to people who pay rent. All those go up with high real estate prices. Further, even if the college owns a land, the money they earn on that land has to compete with what a developer who is willing to tear it down and put up a residential building which now earns higher rent or sale price. I don’t think all the increase comes down to high real estate costs but it’s clear that high real estate costs can easily raise prices downstream across nearly every area.