Posted on 10/31/2025 1:36:15 PM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum
Decades of big spending, new federal funding cuts and a changing view of higher education created a perfect storm; ‘Spending Your Tuition On Its Mistakes’
The school that produced Milton Friedman and 34 other Nobel Prize-winning economists is struggling to manage its pocketbook.
The University of Chicago ran budget deficits for 14 years straight, spending big on new labs, dorms and technology to raise its profile and enrollment. Now it’s facing a financial reckoning.
Over the summer, university leaders said they needed to cut $100 million in expenses. They decided to slow tenure-track hiring, scale back new construction and pause admissions to nearly 20 Ph.D. programs for a year. They’ve been aggressively fundraising and soft launched a new capital campaign.
By the time freshmen arrived in September with their minifridges and extra-long sheets, disgruntled faculty and graduate students had printed up flyers. Families—many paying $71,000 a year—were handed a paper that read “UChicago: Spending Your Tuition On Its Mistakes.”
The university is an acute example of the financial woes plaguing higher education. Even before President Trump’s federal funding cuts, many schools were already stretched by years of competitive spending. Their budget struggles are in many cases more than a decade in the making, and it’s not just far-flung state universities or D-list private colleges suffering.
As schools scramble to make cutbacks, they face broader questions about what kind of university they can be in this new era of financial constraint.
“Our president kept saying we’ll get ‘sharper,’” said Gabe Winant, an associate history professor at UChicago. “How does something get sharper? You file away at it.”
In the years leading up to the pandemic, low interest rates fueled borrowing binges across higher education to build snazzy academic buildings and dorms. UChicago and other schools also...
(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...
U of Chicago has the distinction of being the first school to boast tuition/fees/room & board over $100,000 annually and that was 5 to 6 years before covid.
I remember reading the article and one hook for students was the elite level, top of the line, concierge housing...
I hope they go bankrupt...
The founding of the federal department of education and all the largess showered by it on academia, without financial accountability, aided and abetted the extravagance and outright wasteful spending at colleges with unchecked tuition increases and met with more and more federal subsidies to schools and students to pay for it all.
“Aid to education” at the college level was really and truly NOT as much about “education” as it was about subsidizing the arrogant, extravagant and elitist education industrial complex. The colleges lobbied their friends in Congress to keep pushing for more college and student subsidies not “for the students benefit” but to just help the colleges keep from having to operate economical, efficient and financially sound institutions; not to worry, “Congress will support the students” and keep upping the aid for the unaccountable tuition increases.
I transferred out in the early ‘80s largely because of high expenses and a lack of financial aid.
I will cut U. Chicago some slack. It was their former Dean Zimmer, who became well known during Trump I administration, for sending out a letter to incoming freshmen that the university did not accept “safe spaces,” and all students should be prepared to have their ideas tested. Leftists freaked out.
Milton’s old stomping grounds
Yeah, I remember that too. That was definitely a plus in my book. But sounds like they got stupid in other ways.
But they sure know about fag sex! Cause they took classes on it!
My son was offered a roster spot on the football team there. No money since they aren’t D1 or D2. $96k. Hopkins was only $46k.
Or it could be that UChicago’s location in south Chicago is a negative factor.
+++++++++++
The only redeeming thing about U of C location is (was) Maxwell street market. My father used to take me on Sunday mornings. All the hoodrats were sleeping off the Saturday night bender so it was not too dangerous. Great memories. No longer.
I think I see a problem here. Circa 1966 my school NLSC now the University of Louisiana Monroe had about 7000 students. Today it is about 8300. In 1966 the administration building had one wing of the chemistry building and about 20 offices and today it has a three story behemoth of a building with probably 100 offices. Do you see a problem with this?
It may be posted that tuition, room/board and fees may be $100,000 per year. However, that does not include any scholarships, grants, etc. that students may receive.
The out-of-pocket costs for a student (parents) may be far less than the posted amount.
You can say that about any school...my daughter went to a Big 10 school, was an A student, graduated magna cum laude and with Distinction in her department...
Over four years we received exactly $0.00 in scholarship $$$ and were forced to pay full freight (about $55K annually) because we’re white, own a home and pay all our own bills...
10 Washington gives taxpayers’ money to colleges.
20 Colleges brainwash the kids to make government bigger.
30 GOTO 10
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