Michael Bérubé runs the numbers on Penn State:
In 1985, the state provided 45 percent of Penn State’s budget; in 2011 it provided 6 percent. In 1985, in-state tuition was just over $2,500; today it is over $16,000. Over the past twenty-five years, the cost of a public college education has increasingly been offloaded onto individual students and their families, as education has been redefined from a public good to a private investment.
And he concludes:
A fully privatized Penn State no longer has any reason to call itself “Penn State.” Indeed, the name would amount almost to false advertising, since there would be nothing “State” about us. And that means a whole new vista would be open to us – and in different ways, to Temple and to Pitt. In two words: naming rights … Let the bidding begin.
My hopes are in the title.
The Edge of the American West 
15 comments
February 13, 2012 at 9:38 am
Vance Maverick
Billionaires giving their billions for this use would be a great thing. So would public support for education. Here’s hoping for some progress on both fronts.
February 13, 2012 at 10:11 am
Main Street Muse
Are other public universities so bereft of public funds? [I know the UNC system is struggling with huge budget cuts.]
My BIL, who is college-searching with his daughter right now, told me that Northwestern U will charge $60K per year starting in the fall. The cost of private colleges remain out of the reach of much of middle-America – and make the $16K Penn State tuition seem like a deal.
I’d like to know WHY the cost of college – both private and public – has risen so dramatically since the Reagan era. The cost for higher education has rise far and above cost of living/inflation.
I wonder if the public’s willingness to load up on debt led college administrations to feel it was acceptable to charge huge increases with each passing year? How is this money being spent?
February 13, 2012 at 11:14 am
Colin Danby
Michael’s story is not unusual, Main Street: According to this Washington Post piece (http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/uc-berkeley-and-other-public-ivies-in-fiscal-peril/2011/12/14/gIQAfu4YJP_story.html) State support as a percentage of the operating budget has dropped over the last few decades
University of Virginia, 26% to 7 %
University of Michigan, 48% to 17%
University of California 47% to 11%
Here in Washington State the story is much the same — I don’t have exact data at hand but state support has dropped rapidly over the last decade, and has been made up in tuition.
Surely the picture nationally is more varied and complicated (does anyone have a link to comprehensive historical data for state-by-state higher ed support?) but your first paragraph contains much of the answer to the question in your third paragraph.
February 13, 2012 at 11:36 am
rea
College is a bubble, like housing was a few years ago. One of these days, it’s going to pop.
I graduated from a very highly-respected law school at a state university in ’78. Present tuition at that school, in constant dollars is ten times what it was when I attended. That’s simply not sustainable.
February 13, 2012 at 11:44 am
Main Street Muse
Does anyone know how operating budgets have changed over the years? Are universities and colleges spending significantly more to operate the buildings, etc. than before? (In other words, are states providing similar dollar amounts, but the percentages are less because the overall operating costs are more? I realize the last three years have been dreadful for all public institutions, but what about before the crash?
What are they spending their money on? It does not seem that professor salaries are astronomically high at public universities (but I could be wrong about that.)
I realize that in post-Reagan life, public funding has decreased for public colleges, but what explains the astronomical increases in tuition for private colleges? (Am looking at three tuitions in the not-so-distant future, so brood about this frequently.)
February 13, 2012 at 1:40 pm
rosmar
I’ve read that operating costs have gone up significantly–students expect a lot more amenities (wireless, nice gyms, vegan and vegetarian and gluten-free foods, etc.), and many classes require more technology or equipment, and costs of insurance have gone up at a rapid pace. Schools have to spend more on security, post-9/11 and post-Virginia Tech shooting. But other costs, like pay for administrators and coaches, have gone up fast, too.
Pay for professors has not gone up rapidly–average increase of around 3% a year, if I remember correctly.
February 13, 2012 at 10:25 pm
Susie
rosmar: Good quality food of any kind, vegetarian or not, does cost more than what we were served when I was in college, but meat is still more expensive than plants. Don’t blame the vegetarians.
February 13, 2012 at 11:25 pm
Vance Maverick
Expanded staff and administration appears to be part of it. (Searching for that, though, I found lots of rightwing sites first — possible there’s some skew going on there.)
February 14, 2012 at 5:23 am
Main Street Muse
Okay so that article Vance links to leaves me brooding about the amount of fraud the American consumer supports via any purchase of any kind these days, including college tuition.
Do you professors see the kind of outrageous administrative spending noted in the Washington Monthly article?
I know that the use of part-time faculty has grown significantly, it seems (in the corporate world, that’s a permalancer – some one who works hard for less pay and no bennies.) All part of the new millennial American dream….
February 14, 2012 at 5:24 am
rosmar
I’m not blaming the vegetarians–but schools have to provide more variety of food than they used to (and that was only one factor in a list of many factors). It’s not like everyone has gone vegetarian, which would certainly save the schools money.
February 14, 2012 at 3:00 pm
Western Dave
MSM when looking at private colleges be careful. Relatively few people pay sticker price at many private colleges anymore. The New York Times ran a profile on Ursinus College a few years ago where it revealed a bizarre hitch in college pricing. Ursinus (a very good college here in Philadelphia suburbs) was losing out it’s traditionally strong applicant base in the Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland area to national colleges. As Ursinus recruited nationally, it wasn’t able to replace the students it was losing. A marketing firm was hired and the reason discovered. Ursinus was too cheap. Parents and students who didn’t know the school thought there must be something wrong with it if it was so much cheaper than competing schools. Solution? Double tuition and then gave almost everybody admitted a half-scholarship. Problem solved. Northwestern is expensive because if it weren’t, it wouldn’t attract top students. But few folks will pay the 50,000+ tuition, room and board sticker price. And they don’t even give merit scholarships like Ursinus does.
February 14, 2012 at 3:08 pm
Western Dave
I found the article http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/12/education/12tuition.html?pagewanted=all. My numbers were a little off but you get the gist.
February 14, 2012 at 5:08 pm
Odm
If you’re going to try to attract corporate or personal sponsors, why stop at the school’s name? Have sponsors for individual classes, maybe even lectures. If it works for NPR, why not for education?
Support for this post is provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
February 14, 2012 at 5:57 pm
silbey
Demand is part of it, especially at the higher end schools. In 2011 Harvard admitted 2158 students out of 34950 applicants.
February 19, 2012 at 3:23 pm
TF Smith
Stanford is a nice JC…