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burroisolator11/21/20243 repliesview on HN

This is a common myth. This might explain why Harvard or MIT tuition is high but not the average college. Tuition mostly reflects staff costs and those have been going up due to Baumol's cost disease. Dentists, along with many other industries with its main cost being highly educated staff that haven't managed to scale production like online brokerages, have had a similar price increase since 1970.


Replies

bjt11/21/2024

Increased tuition is not primarily going to pay higher salaries to professors. It's mostly going to hiring lots more administrators. https://www.forbes.com/sites/paulweinstein/2023/08/28/admini...

adastra2211/21/2024

You’re going to have to qualify where you are talking about. Where I am, California, that only describes community colleges. Even state and especially UC have “invested” significantly in infrastructure improvements paid for with loans backed by expectations of tuition income, which has had an absurd effect on growing tuition far outside of inflation. Very little of your tuition at these schools goes towards teaching salaries.

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baq11/21/2024

When you compare the campus of MIT or Harvard to the average university anywhere else, you’ll find… excess. Lots of it.