Interestingly enough, the Vice President of Budget and Capital Resources received approval for a 10% pay increase at the same meeting.

Tuition in the California State university system was increased 12%. At the same time, San Diego State’s president was approved for a salary 33% higher than the previous president. His salary is now a whopping $400,000.

At least administrators can continue to afford to send their children to California’s public universities!

For more see:
“UC Regents hike tuition – again”
“Capitol Alert: UC regents vote to increase tuition”
“Cal State trustees raise tuition 12%”

The post Education at California’s public universities gets more expensive again – UC has doubled in six years appeared first on Inflation Watch.

The good news is that the salaries and benefits for college presidents at public universities held steady the last academic year (2009-2010) as reported by AJC.com in “Study: Recession hasn’t cut college president salaries“. This was no easy feat given the generous compensation:

“The median total compensation for 185 presidents running the country’s largest public research universities was $440,487. About one-third earned more than $500,000 and the 10 highest earned more than $725,000 each. Ohio State University President E. Gordon Gee received $1.8 million, the highest.”

Of course, staying flat is nothing compared to the 27% hike in median pay for the nation’s CEOs in 2010, but those increases only restored CEOs to pre-recession levels. A University of Georgia spokesman defended the pay for presidents by pointing out the limited supply of qualified candidates for the job.

The bad news about inflation on college campuses is that tuition increased. Students paid a whopping 25% more in tuition in the last academic year. Assuming most of them will not grow up to be CEOs, they can probably look forward to working in a company where their salaries will not keep pace with the head honcho. (The average compensation package increased 2.1% last year).

The post Tuition up and top salaries secure on college campuses appeared first on Inflation Watch.

“Despite the increased cost, the College is still discounting students’ educations — which are worth twice the amount of tuition costs — by 50 percent…

Kim emphasized the value of an Ivy League education, citing the evaluations of economist and Yale University President Richard Levin. Levin estimated that a four-year college degree increases an individual’s income by 40 percent…”

Kim also claimed that financial aid is absorbing much of the hit for needy families.

Kim’s stance on return on investment (ROI) sums up the defense best: “Your return on investment of going to Dartmouth is higher than it’s ever been before.”

I could not tell from the article whether these answers mollified any frustrated students, but I think they are on the right track to question these constant price hikes that well-exceed the existing level of inflation.

The post Dartmouth President justifies price hikes claiming education still worth twice the tuition appeared first on Inflation Watch.

“…four-year public universities increased their published tuition and fees almost 8 percent this year, to an average of $7,605, according to the College Board’s annual reports. When room and board are included, the average in-state student at a public university now pays $16,140 a year. At private nonprofit colleges and universities, tuition rose 4.5 percent to an average of $27,293, or $36,993 with room and board…
…Over the last decade, published tuition and fees at public four-year colleges and universities increased each year at an average of 5.6 percent beyond the rate of inflation.”

The spiraling cost of higher education has arguably been supported by generous federal assistance:

“In the last five years…average published tuition and fees increased by about 24 percent at public four-year colleges and universities, 17 percent at private nonprofit four-year institutions, and 11 percent at public two-year colleges — but in each sector, the net inflation-adjusted price, taking into account both grants and federal tax benefits, decreased over the period.”

These pricing dynamics show an increasing shift of funding for public higher education from states to the Federal government.

The post Tuition costs outpace inflation again appeared first on Inflation Watch.

This author believes that the bubble in government debt will burst first but given that government debt partially helps support the spiraling costs of education through support for ballooning student debt, the timing may be close enough. Note well that rising home equity helped many middle-class families scrape together enough money to pay for college for their kids – that prop will not likely return anytime soon.

The post The Tuition Bubble appeared first on Inflation Watch.

• California State University trustees raise tuition by 5%.
• Oklahoma State to raise tuition by 4%.
• University of South Carolina to raise tuition by 6.9%.
• University of Alabama at Huntsville to raise tuition by 15%.
• Temple University to raise tuition by 5.9%.
• University of Wisconsin to raise tuition by 5.5%.
• 8.5% tuition rise at University of Tennessee at Knoxville likely.

Glenn Reynolds writes: “With only a few exceptions (like being admitted to Yale Law School or CalTech) I strongly recommend avoiding student loans. And I wonder — when you’ve got an industry whose prices have skyrocketed on a combination of consumer ignorance and cheap credit, what happens when consumers wise up, and credit gets harder to come by?”

The post Tuition continues to rise faster than CPI appeared first on Inflation Watch.

The post Tuition increases as much as 16% at Georgia public universities and colleges appeared first on Inflation Watch.

“Over all, salaries for this academic year are 1.2 percent higher than last year, the smallest increase recorded in the survey’s 50 years — and well below the 2.7 percent inflation rate from December 2008 to December 2009.

The survey found that average salary levels actually decreased this academic year at a third of colleges and universities, compared with 9 percent that reported lower average salaries in the previous two surveys. Private and church-related universities reported shrinking average salaries more often than public institutions.”

Of course this leaves us to wonder where all the money is going from tuition hikes. The article notes: “Generally, administrative salaries at colleges and universities have been increasing far more quickly than pay for faculty members.”

The post College Faculty Not Seeing the Benefits of Tuition Inflation appeared first on Inflation Watch.

The post Regents raise college tuition in California by 32 percent appeared first on Inflation Watch.

Insane.

Related: College President salaries continued to climb.

The post The $50K Club appeared first on Inflation Watch.