The Colleges have continuted to jack up tuitions simply becauses they can. They continue to feed at the trough of the Federal Student Loan program. Today's young adults are not only armed with irrelevant degrees they are burdened with hefty loan payments in a world squeezed by globalization and the burden of paying for illegals. And just wait until they get the social security bills to pay for their baby boomer parents who all thought federal subsidized student loans were a wonderful idea.
It's because the feds and the state have jacked up the number of regulations that colleges have to comply with to get state and federal funding, and those take man hours to deal with. The amount of middle management at the university level to deal with financial add and research grants are staggering, you'd never believe it unless you saw the org charts. This past year, I understand that the local university has 30% cost increases on all heating and power costs. That's a couple of million just to power computing and keep the lights and heat on in all of the billion.. As most state governments are keeping costs the same, and adding regulations that need to be complied with and monitored, of course costs are going to increase.
The colleges also accept a huge number of students who have no qualifications except the money to pay. These kids are used to gliding past in high school. When they go to college, they flunk out in droves. The colleges laugh as they take the money to the bank.