I posted this question in the past. IIRC someone responded with a list of various expenses that a university has to cover. Of course there’s the professors and the classrooms. But there’s also many other things from parking lots, dorms, student health and the staff employed there, the library, gyms, security staff, cafeterias, etc. Then there’s the administrators, which is where I suspect most of that 8 fold increase has gone to. My guess is that while those other things are providing a benefit to the students, the administration probably isn’t 7 to 8 times better than they were 50 to 60 years ago.
Why do you have to go to college to do that? [think critically]
You don’t, but it certainly helps.
In retrospect, high school was learning to learn and stuffing ourselves with information, plus some analysis, university was thinking critically about what you had learnt, and from multiple viewpoints.
Back to the topic: I just wonder why so many jobs these days require a degree - and that applies In Europe as well. Many jobs require a professional qualification that does not require a degree; something like accounting comes to mind, but while some accountants get there through part-time study, it is far easier to do a stretch of full-time study.
In my college experience, I didn’t see the sort of mandatory indoctrination that some alarmist conservatives claim is rampant on campus. I chose to avoid nonsense departments like gender studies where one only goes if one wishes to be indoctrinated. However, I certainly did not see anyone get any better at “critical thinking,” either.