The average cost of 4-year college in the United States: $23,091

[redqueen]

37. Agreed about the commodification,

but there is more going on than just more students.

Fortunately there are initiatives and tools for trustees to use to be able to get a clearer picture of what is going on at their institutions.

(snip)

Once you look up a school on the site, you’ll quickly see its cost for tuition and fees and the average amount of aid students receive, plus the administrative cost per student, instructional cost per student and even how tuition and fees measure up as a percentage of the median household income for the state where the school is located.

At the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, for example, after accounting for inflation, tuition nearly doubled between 2008 and 2016, but the instructional cost per student decreased. It was $12,353 in 2011 but $10,748 in 2016, according to How Colleges Spend Money.

...

https://hechingerreport.org/college-spending-comes-under-closer-scrutiny/