“. . .driving tuition rises and where the extra tuition money goes is administrative positions”
OK, but, people I knew in past generations would not pay for this. They would think it through and say NO.
That would reduce the cost, you know the old supply and demand.
Everyone in my family from two gens past the immigration they made in the late 1800s has gone to college. It is highly valued in my family, its larger community and its ethnicity, statistically speaking.
Spouse and I have 4 degrees between us and we’re never finished with that.
I deter anyone who asks from puring their money into college now.
It has to be re thought. And this didn’t happen suddenly.
Tuition has been rising way past the rate of inflation for a long time.
Parents are stupid, here.
Kids need a lot more guidance and they have to stop incurring debt for this crap they’re getting in return.
And university administrations have been expanding faster than university faculties both in numbers and pay-rates for a long time.
Actually, there is another contributing problem besides the guild interests of university administrators and the third-party-payment system the Feds have established with student loans and grants: the absurd notions that a university education is appropriate for the vast majority of the populace and that a university education is primarily job-training.
We really need to have a system of polytechnics — educationally more substantial versions of trade-schools with apprenticeships as part of their curricula — and a good proportion of students now attending colleges and universities (the ones whose motivation, either native or from their parents, is to “get a good job”, rather than to get an education) should be attending them instead.