I've beem saying this for years. What, is the world finally catching up?
I noticed that trend, sir, while at the University of Nebraska many years ago, and then for many years afterwards.
(I worked my way through college; had less than $1500 in student loans to pay off when I was done.)
Every time the federal government raised student assistance, for example, say, 10%, it seemed the University of Nebraska then raised tuition or fees, or both, circa 10% (maybe 10.5%, 11%, 11.25%, but something close to the percentage increase in federal assistance).
The purpose of increased federal assistance WAS to help more poorer students get into, and finish, college; however, the effect was that college became more and more expensive, cutting those poorer, potential, students out of the action even more.
The only way increased federal assistance would help the poor was if the colleges and universities had kept costs stable, or at least below the increase in federal assistance.
What gets my goat is that even today, students at the University of Nebraska tend to think of the university administration as being on "their side," and the state and federal legislators, "against" them, whenever a budget is discussed.
When I attended the University of Nebraska, it was a fairly decent middling university; it met all academic standards, and was pretty much what Nebraska could afford (we are after all one of the smallest states in the union).....and tuition and fees were cheap.
Now, with "empire builders" having vaccuumed up the substantial increases in student aid to finance their personal kingdoms, principalities, and grand duchies, the University of Nebraska--the stated goal of one its recent presidents being to change it to "the Harvard of the Plains"--is not even a "C+" university any more.
And the only way it equals Harvard (slight exaggeration, but slowly coming true) is in.....what it charges.
Education funding is just as much of a scheme to rip off the young and inexperienced as is Social Security. It's a racket. If you take a look at most schools they waste huge amounts of funds on marginally or non-academic fields, like Ward Churchill and his ilk.
I read somewhere that the most financially endowed private institution after the Vatican is Harvard University - much of this comes from donations from alumni and business.
That being the case, why the bloody hell do they charge students so much (my sister is there for graduate school)? There is a very strange form of economics at work with universities.
Regards, Ivan