[jccalhoun]

I have a friend who is an advisor at a Big 10 school. While going through the old papers in her office she found the budget of the school from the late 90s. The school's expenses have doubled in that time. Part of it is certainly the amenities arm race. However, the amount of money they get from the state has only gone up by 50%.

[philwelch]

> While going through the old papers in her office she found the budget of the school from the late 90s. The school's expenses have doubled in that time. Part of it is certainly the amenities arm race. However, the amount of money they get from the state has only gone up by 50%.

The implication here is usually that the amount of money they get from the state is insufficient to keep up with costs, therefore universities are forced to raise tuition. I don't think this is true. I suspect universities would raise tuition anyway, and if they got more money from the state, they would just increase their costs even more.