<p>I guess when the Times publishes a provactive article, they follow up with a series of mini-editorials. Here is the link:</p>
<p>Easing</a> the Pain of Student Loans - Room for Debate - NYTimes.com</p>
<p>I like this response the best:</p>
<p>Question: Why has the cost of college tripled, in real dollars, over the past 30 years? Answer: Colleges know that whatever they charge, students will pay, largely by taking out loans. The Reason: Only colleges can grant degrees, an award most young people think they must have. </p>
<p>Yet the shameful truth is that too little of the revenue goes for education. Colleges have been rifling tuition checks for all manner of extraneous outlays, with undergraduate instruction barely making the list. </p>
<p>Colleges have been making all manner of extraneous outlays, knowing that whatever they charge, students will pay, largely by taking out loans.</p>
<p>Expensive, often money-losing varsity teams are a drain for many colleges. Bates College, with only 1,725 students, fields 31 such teams. It costs the University of Southern California $32,234 per player per year to field its golf teams. Did you know that the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has a football squad? At last count, only 683 of its 10,353 students turned out for a typical game. Marquette eliminated football and Emory has never had it, reasoning that students foot its deficits.</p>
<p>Gone are the days when room and board meant a battered desk, an iron cot, and mystery meat in a cafeteria. Colleges have added to the appeal of their meals and amenities. Bowdoin College offers Dijon chicken and butternut soup, at a commensurate cost. On the public side, Washington State University provides a jumbo Jacuzzi with room for 50 students. Its not clear that students asked for this amenity.</p>
<p>More colleges now give their faculties expensive sabbaticals every third year. A recent count found that 20 of Harvards 48 history professors werent teaching. Nor can it be shown that research enhances classroom instruction; often the reverse is the case.</p>
<p>Nationwide, full professors average a not-humble $113,176. Faculty pay at Stanford has close to doubled in actual dollars in the last three decades. The president of 1,991-student Carleton College gets $593,132. I dont doubt he has weighty duties; but the head of the Food and Drug Administration makes about a third as much.</p>
<p>Even while indenturing their futures with loans, students find they are increasingly taught by underpaid adjuncts, and in huge lectures where they peer at a professor from the 26th row. At another time, Ill fault state legislators for starving public colleges. For the present, Id say that the prodigal ways of faculties and administrators could use a closer look.</p>
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<p>The fact of the matter is that while collegest are non-profit, it does not mean they are "non-waste". Colleges are spending way more then they should, and spending lots of money on things that are not in line with their core-mission: providing an education. I think that college presidents and trustees are just like the bankers on Wall Street: they just don't get it.</p>