Where does all this tuition money go? I always figured the price was just going to go up and up as long as the government and private loans were willing to front more and more of the cost (and guarantee payment), but, where is this money actually going, and is running a school so much more expensive than it was such a few decades ago?
My 10-second Google research on this question made me a little angry on behalf of all parents dealing with this.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/nathanl.../#6be9eb3773ca
"There's a lot of strange fluff in the expense column, including $11.8 million paid to outside consultants, $8.0 in travel expenses, $4.2 million to top officials, and $25 million in undisclosed "other expenses." Total personnel expenses, outside of the top officials, were $86 million.
...
A study found that the California State University system had 11,614 full-time faculty in 1973, and 12,019 in 2008. During that same time period, administrators grew from 3,800 to 12,183, ending up with more administrators than faculty. I would guess that things were not really all that lean in 1973 either. It has only gotten worse since 2008. An anonymous college professor -- he calls himself "Professor Doom" -- has been chronicling his own experience working in this environment of bureaucratic horror."
It's also interesting how universities count scholarship money and grants as "expenses". I guess it is in a sense, but, they're just strategically accepting less money for certain students, that doesn't mean that the initial $60k tuition price is an appropriate and required default point to keep the lights on and that anything less than that is an "expense" that has to be recovered elsewhere.