Increases in tuition and fees have long outstripped the rate of inflation (as well as the rate of increase in most other economic sectors), and now access to credit to pay the bills has all but dried up. See here. It's yet another area where the gap between the haves and the have-nots is widening. This is unsustainable.
A tiny, tiny part of the problem here is the ridiculously large salaries that top administrators at many colleges and universities earn. Atypical, but noteworthy, are the recent stories about the scandalous amounts funneled to the presidents of Suffolk University in Boston and the Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, NJ.
Most private institutions are non-profits. We should put limits on the compensation at such institutions. How about limiting the top salary to ten times tuition and fees? Or even twenty times? That ought to be enough. That limit should include everybody -- presidents, provosts, deans, football coaches, athletic directors, hot-shot professors, etc. Of course, the problem with such a proposal is that it gets the incentives wrong and would simply lead to higher tuition and fees.
But something must be done. The model is broken. Unless we fix it, college will soon again be the preserve only of the very wealthy.
Comments