The cost of higher education is rising faster than ever, even faster than medical costs and the income of most of the Americans. Even students who have enrolled in public colleges graduate with thousands of dollars in debt. If you have wondered where these institutions have spent your money, and why tuition keeps rising, here's what you need to know.
For a typical university, the tuition primarily is spent for instruction, room and board with a student faculty ratio of 10:1. Forbes states that the costs for the faculty, administrative and support staff only make up 44 percent of a student's tuition. And there is still the endowment fund and the grants and donations that colleges and universities receive. This means to say that if all the income of the institutions are to be computed, they should be more than enough to cover all college fees and tuition.
It could cost a lot of money to employ many faculty members but this does not make up the largest percentage of college expenses, according to SchoolMoney.org, as it only makes up to 27 percent of college costs. But administrators grew in number more than the faculty most especially in 2008. This is one added expense to colleges. The cost of tuition also keeps on going up because of decreased state funding. Families and students spend for the same quality of education and yet, the costs are just getting higher because of the cuts in state spending on public higher education.
On the other hand, many research universities have continued their increase in spending while there is a decrease in local funding, and this is where tuition fees have been used - to bridge the gap or cover the discrepancy.
