That's true at some universities (especially private ones), but costs don't explain the results everywhere. In the University of California system, the per-stud

That's true at some universities (especially private ones), but costs don't explain the results everywhere. In the University of California system, the per-student cost of providing education has actually gone down: total university-system expenditures divided by number of students produces a number about 20-25% lower today than it was in the '70s, in real-dollar terms. Why has tuition gone up, then? The state of California has cut its per-student funding to less than half of what it used to be, which leaves a substantial gap even after the cost improvements. Here are some funding numbers I compiled, via the rough-estimate method of taking the state allocation to the system and dividing by its undergraduate enrollment: http://www.kmjn.org/misc/uc_funding.txt http://www.kmjn.org/misc/uc_funding.txt