As I know, may be I am wrong. 1.Most colleges and universities are not-for-profit or state funded with tax money. 2 Most professors and associate professors don’t have millions dollars salary. 3. They don’t pay property tax or sales tax. So most expenses are low, so then why the tuitions are raised much higher than inflation. In profit businesses, we can blame shareholders, greedy CEOs, greedy doctors, greedy lawyers, but not for profit colleges and universities explanation for high tuitions.
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University expenses are NOT low… there are huge costs associated with operating a large campus/university While most universities are not-for-profit, that simply means there aren’t shareholders/owners who expect a cut of profits. Universities still need large sums of money to operate, and want to set aside money into their endowments to fund larger capital projects, tuition grants, etc.
And while public universities do get some state funding, it’s still a small part of their operating budgets and have been drastically reduced over past 20-30 years.
Universities have tons of buildings, those buildings need upkeep, improvements for technology, energy efficiency, etc. Students’ expectations mean upgrades to housing, adding more amenities, more single rooms, etc. It’s a constant arms race to attract the best students and improve a university’s rankings/reputation.
And while professor salaries aren’t millions of dollars, there are still lots of professors, lots of support staff (receptionists, cooks, librarians, IT support, janitors, groundkeepers, maintenance, and so on), various levels of administration (president, deans, admissions, financial aid, all the typical business operations like accounting and legal, investment managers for endowment).
Another factor is the full tuition price vs. who is actually paying that… more and more schools are offering free or reduced tuition to students with family incomes under certain levels. Many Ivy League schools are free for students from families making less than $100k. So while full tuition may be $70k, only a fraction are paying that, many are paying a lesser amount, and a good many aren’t paying at all.
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