# Why Does Does College Tuition Outstrip Inflation?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-does-college-tuition-outstrip-inflation/619530>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [April 21, 2012, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-does-college-tuition-outstrip-inflation/619530 "2012-04-21T20:22:02Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 3

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**Author:** ![Cliffy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/59ef9b/32.png) [@Cliffy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cliffy)\
**Post date:** [April 25, 2012, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-does-college-tuition-outstrip-inflation/619530/41 "2012-04-25T21:51:00Z")

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Too lazy to read the whole thread – apologies if this was covered.

One factor I’ve heard is the ever-increasing disparity between rich and not rich (itself largely a result of right-wing tax policy and associated cultural shifts). 20 years ago, people with professional educations saw that their upside potential income in the private sector was significantly higher than in education, but this was offset by prestige, the social importance of teaching as a career, less stressful working conditions (or at least perception of same), freedom of professional inquiry, and ability to go to work every day in shorts, birkenstocks, and dress socks. (Seriously, what the fuck dudes?)

Nowadays, the same comparison has people right out of school in the private sector making incomes comensurate with tenured professors, and the upside potential is in the mid six figures in salary alone, plus options or other non-salary compensation. The equation is harder to sustain, so (at least in certain fields or at colleges of renown), you have to pay faculty something astronomical just to be back in the realm of “way less $, but with other rewards.”

–Cliffy

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**Author:** ![What\_the](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/f4b2a3/32.png) [@What\_the](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_the)\
**Post date:** [April 26, 2012, 11:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-does-college-tuition-outstrip-inflation/619530/42 "2012-04-26T11:42:04Z")

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> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#):
>
> What your words actually said was that non-profits have no right to have the business model that they do: only for-profits are allowed to have a business model that involves holding on to assets. You may not have meant that, but that is the only interpretation possible from what you wrote.
> 
> I disagree with that as a premise. So do all the learned business schools of this country.

What you actually said, and what I was clearly responding to, was that US business are just like universities with regard to piles of money they are sitting on.

…and what I clearly said in the very first sentence was that non-market forces were stronger than market forces. Not that they don’t have a “right” to operate any way they want to.

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