Reasons For Increasing Tuition

David Diaz

An article by the New York Times entitled "Why College Costs Rise Even in Recession" by Ron Lieber, gives several reasons for the constant increase in college tuition every year, however he focuses mostly on how to lower tuition costs and less on how tuition costs have actually increased. Lieber suggests several college practices that cause an increase in tuition. These include teachers spending too little time teaching, unnecessary departments, and too many administrative workers. Although, Lieber does not take into account the basic needs of a college such as technology, maintenance, student services, and the effects of inflation on these factors.

According to Lieber, college tuition constantly increases due to several avoidable factors. First, colleges today spend tons of money to fund departments that are costly and unnecessary, for example piano classes that require costly pianos and regular maintenance. Second, colleges today have a habit of hiring too many administrative people. Lafayette College, according to Lieber, actually spends more money on nonfaculty staff then it does on teachers. This makes no sense when one considers that a college is first and foremost a school and not a place for countless and random administrative positions. These are two reasons given by Lieber on the excessive cost of tuition and methods that may lower it, but what about the unavoidable factors?

Although Lieber makes a strong argument and presents insightful solutions, he has failed to recognize the unavoidable. Colleges in this day and age are expected to have the latest and greatest in faculty, textbooks, and technology. The latter two require maintenance and departments that work constantly to provide that maintenance. Also, college must have living quarters that require cleaning, dining facilities that require cooks, and many other services each requiring their own set of dedicated workers. Finally, with the rise of inflation over the past years, all of these services are becoming more expensive to provide. This causes an unavoidable increase in college spending and they pass the expense onto the students via tuition. Even though Lieber does make a great point that colleges can do a lot to lower the cost of tuition for their students, he does not say that due to the increased expectancy of the services colleges should provide and the increase in expense to provide these services some of the cost is necessary and unavoidable.