The Brookings Institution Jonathan Rothwell Dec. 23, 2016 Excerpt: For higher education, a major factor driving up costs has been a growth in the number of highly-paid non-teaching professionals. In 1988, for every 100 full-time equivalent students, there were on average 23 college employees. By 2012, that number had increased to 31 employees, with a shift toward the highest paying non-teaching occupations. Managers and professionals now outnumber faculty, who comprise just a third of the higher education workforce. To a large extent, rising costs have been absorbed by increased student borrowing, subsidized by the federal government, and supplemented through grant aid. Unfortunately, as my report shows, federal loans have increasingly gone to the worst-performing colleges, from the perspective of default rates, which is consistent with Brookings research showing the rising prevalence of for-profit colleges as aid recipients. More... https://www.brookings.edu/blog/social-mobility-memos/2016/12/23/the-declining-productivity-of-education/
The bit on faculty being only 1/3 of the higher ed workforce is a bit sobering as well. I'd like to see a study that also looks at increases in campus construction for mainly superfluous projects as they relate to this type of higher ed cost growth.
In Dutchess County, New York, the power-mad that be wanted to build dormitories at the community college. Nearly everyone was against that. The dormitories were built.