"It's a scandal no one is talking about. College tuition charges are a gigantic scam bankrupting middle-class families."--Camille Paglia on C-Span
It has often occured to me that, for example, a history unit at a college costs substantially lees than one at a university. Yet on the face of it all that is needed is a lecturer, a chalkboard, a classroom and some textbooks (the latter being bought by the students.) Of course one may point out that lots of expensive engineering and scientific research is undertaken at universities. This being so it seems that science courses are subsidised by art student course fees. Roy Maybery
That subsidy may be so but science/engineering students pay lab fees for the mundane stuff and the research is underwritten by industry and government. A periodic complaint from some academics and others is that, say, the pharmaceutical industry or the DoD has too much campus influence for that underwriting.
"A periodic complaint from some academics and others is that, say, the pharmaceutical industry or the DoD has too much campus influence for that underwriting." Yes, and of course this undermines pure research. On entering the world of higher education I quickly learned that knowledge (that is as far as one can meaningfully talk of knowledge in a philosophical context) is often far from free. Roy maybery