[yardie]

I'm guessing it is more buildings, more administrators, and less money from the state. My alma mater (Virginia Tech) had buildings going up in growth spurts for a while; late 19th century, late 1930s, late 60s. Since the late 90s it's averaged one new building a year. And now, some of those 19th century buildings are being torn down or gut reno'd for more buildings. And it's not like they have 20-50 million on hand to break ground. Everyone one of those new buildings has a 30-50 year mortgage. Some might get a donor to put their name on it, later. But this only offsets some of the costs.

I believe outside the Postdoc instructors, they pay the market rate for staff. You can't get good sys admins on $10/hr but you can make a PhD candidate practically beg for every dollar.