Undergraduates with family income below $200k will be tuition-free at MIT

While I think this is well meaning, I’d be much more impressed by institutions actually cutting costs, The ratio of administrators to students is insane as is the faculty ratio at most universities, not to mention the outlays for extravagant projects like sports centers and student centers.

Thank you for this comment; articles on the rising costs of college almost always uncritically treat it like a law of nature, and rarely have I seen articles that attempt to study in-depth the extent to which college administrations have become bloated, self-perpetuating jobs programs. All while at the same time departments are cut, professors are expected to do more with less, and more and more classes are pushed on to adjunct faculty who get paid a pittance. Until this is addressed, any efforts to improve the ways in which students finance their education is just a band-aid.

If you’re interested.

https://www.goacta.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/The-Cost-o...

> not to mention the outlays for extravagant projects like sports centers

Just a note that for a lot of schools the sports programs (football especially) are actually a profit center, not a cost center. Situations obviously vary, but it's entirely plausible that a new sports center could be an investment that pays itself off rather than an extravagant expense.

Very much this

Right. I tend to wonder sometimes if the bigger football schools are actually football teams first, and educational institutions second. The rise of legalized/mobile gambling seems to have supercharged it.

Of course they are, they make the money, a lot of it.

Yeah my school was a -lot- less nice 20 years ago when I graduated. I was amazed visiting my nephew in his dorm. It was like something out of an extremely nice hotel and concurrent works space for students to lounge and study, and the sports stadium was insanely improved. He said almost all the dorms were that nice or better. I can’t help but feel all that likely came out of his an other students back pockets, as the state has only been cutting funding for public universities. And yes I realize this has more than one cause, but virtually unlimited student allows allow a large portion of the out of control tuition costs.