Education

Supplies and equipment for classrooms and laboratories. Salary for faculty, staff, and administrators. Student housing. Capital improvements and maintenance. Interest on bonds, in some cases.

Most universities have experienced expansion of their managerial administrator class, and while faculty, staff, and students universally lament the redirection of limited funds into an ever-growing administrative sinkhole, the truth is that firing every single vice president of this or that and rechanneling their salaries back into instruction costs would barely dent the problem. The real costs of running a university are increasing, but only the same way costs are generally increasing in other aspects of American life. What makes them look like they're increasing so precipitously is the concurrent decline in public support. That declining support must be transferred to students in the form of tuition costs.