It’s no secret that college tuitions are skyrocketing.
The University of Pittsburgh recently increased its tuition for in-state students by 2%, and 7% for out-of-state students. In the 2021-22 school year, tuitions ranged for public college in-state students from $10,740, to $38,070 at private colleges. The average living cost for on-campus students was $14,050 on top of that.
President Biden’s solution to forgive loans for some students was disallowed by the courts. So, how do we solve this problem?
Although loan forgiveness sounds good on the surface, it does not solve the problem for everyone and, most importantly, does nothing to slow increasing tuition costs and may even encourage them to rise.
Why should government solve the tuition problem, anyway, when universities have caused this mess and passed the cost of their extravagance to students through higher tuitions with minimal accountability?
One major problem is universities are increasingly hiring more high-paid administrators. For example, in the last 20 years, Harvard increased the number of administrators by 43% while only increasing the faculty by 11%.
While overall inflation averaged 66% during the past 20 or so years, college tuition and other costs increased by 175% for in-state students.
With all the brain power concentrated at universities, why can’t these smart people figure out a way to provide education more inexpensively?
Dave Majernik
Plum