Koolau
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
College have seen no improvements in productivity for the past half century, have added layers of additional cost, and also have added functions and extracurricular activities that are not academic. Alex Tabarrok of George Mason University has written extensively on this, here are a few of his blog posts at Marginal Revolution. It’s a bit wonky.
He attributes this to “Baumol cost disease”. Wages of professionals at the colleges have risen even though there has been no improvement in productivity because competitive professions, such as doctors and lawyers, have enjoyed increases in the price of labor.
In other words, college cost of labor rises because it can, and that flows immediately to the overall cost.
IOW all those things the gummint did to insure that everyone (almost) can go to college, actually went to more layering of administration (and building edifices to former faculty.)
You can't fool mother nature. Supply and demand is a law for a reason. It's a natural law - not man made. Dump a bunch of money into universities (and call it loans and aid to students) and what happens? Universities spend it on what THEY want - not on what their customers need. I contend without any proof that university educations would cost half what they do now if the gummint had stayed out of it. It's probably true that a "few" fewer students would have been able to attend. But just a few. And I contend - again without proof - the students who were "shut out" simply gave up on trying to find a way to a higher education. It's out there. For some, it's a real learning-experience of head-banging-the-wall, but it was always possible for those with decent grades and a lot of drive. One thing for certain, folks that had to really w*rk hard for their education appreciate it. BUT YMMV.