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Sort of, it's a bit more complex than that. Tuition costs and textbook costs have skyrocketed (see http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2013/10/23/charts-just-ho

Sort of, it's a bit more complex than that. Tuition costs and textbook costs have skyrocketed (see http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2013/10/23/charts-just-how-fast-has-college-tuition-grown http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2013/10/23/charts-just-h... ) while faculty salaries have stagnated or even gone down in real terms ( http://www.aaup.org/NR/rdonlyres/C2BAFA70-057E-4097-908B-6E4A6B5A6D38/0/TABB.pdf http://www.aaup.org/NR/rdonlyres/C2BAFA70-057E-4097-908B-6E4... ) Empire-building is correct though in the sense that public institutions are the ones raising their tuition costs by so much (78%!), and a big reason for this is do to college's building new infrastructure, which often times they have no need for. Take SF State University who I used to work for, they built a brand new gymnasium and a brand-new library at a cost of over a billion dollars for a student population in which 78% are commuter students who hold down part-time jobs and spend no time on campus. It just doesn't make financial sense. That said, faculty costs are still the primary problem and why community colleges get the taxpayer a much better bang for the buck. See http://www2.ed.gov/about/bdscomm/list/hiedfuture/reports/dickeson2.pdf http://www2.ed.gov/about/bdscomm/list/hiedfuture/reports/dic...

magicalist 13y ago
You have some good points, but you also neglect the massive spending cuts on education that have happened throughout the country. While there are many public schools that do buy into this notion of trying to compete on prestige with the well known private schools (and proceed to try to buy their way into the respected club), public school tuition increases in the last decade are very much tied to funding cuts.
bradleyjg 13y ago
Though I agree cancerous physical plant growth is an issue, a couple of additional points: 1) Spending on non-faculty salaries have gone through the roof with the exponential growth of well paid but educationally marginal deanlets, deanlings, and administrators. 2) Although total salaries for the tenured professoriat hasn't necessarily exploded, salary per classroom-student hour has as tenured professors have seen their teaching requirements fall, and as large lectures are increasingly taught by poorly paid adjuncts. A generation ago a 3-3 or 4-4 was typical for a tenured liberal arts or social sciences professor, and most freshmen seminars were taught by full faculty. Today many teach 2/2 or even 2/1, and they might well be all be graduate / upper class seminars and supervising student research.

magicalist 13y ago

You have some good points, but you also neglect the massive spending cuts on education that have happened throughout the country. While there are many public schools that do buy into this notion of trying to compete on prestige with the well known private schools (and proceed to try to buy their way into the respected club), public school tuition increases in the last decade are very much tied to funding cuts.

bradleyjg 13y ago

Though I agree cancerous physical plant growth is an issue, a couple of additional points: 1) Spending on non-faculty salaries have gone through the roof with the exponential growth of well paid but educationally marginal deanlets, deanlings, and administrators. 2) Although total salaries for the tenured professoriat hasn't necessarily exploded, salary per classroom-student hour has as tenured professors have seen their teaching requirements fall, and as large lectures are increasingly taught by poorly paid adjuncts. A generation ago a 3-3 or 4-4 was typical for a tenured liberal arts or social sciences professor, and most freshmen seminars were taught by full faculty. Today many teach 2/2 or even 2/1, and they might well be all be graduate / upper class seminars and supervising student research.