College is so stupid expensive that universities are setting up food pantries

When you frame it in these terms, it's really quite troubling. Our generation actually _needs_ future generations to accept the knowledge or it effectively disappears.

Do you have evidence that the number of administrators indeed increased [EDIT: as much as you say, and that what the admins do isn't valuable] and that it significantly affects tuition?

I'm tired of this easy, baseless claim, in every field, that people don't need to pay taxes and contribute to society, they can have a magical free ride by cutting mythical waste. In fact, say some, we don't even need many colleges; these kids can just be plumbers.

Meanwhile, the #1 determinant of college attendance is not academic ability or achievement, but parental wealth. College attendance dropped ~200,000 last year; the country is going backward.

What does this mean exactly? Government has funded universities for generations, and tuition was lower when there was more funding. At least one study I saw found that funding cuts were the main cause of tuition increase.

This argument is used to try to defund every welfare program, but I have yet to see any economic evidence that it's true. Is there any?

> they might spend loads of money on sports just because there would be money left over if they didn't, etc.

They might, but anything is possible. Is there any evidence of it or is this pure speculation?

Sports, for example, is generally seen as excellent marketing for the university, increasing alumni engagement, awareness (TV networks pay the university to put the school's name on national TV for hours, rather than vice-versa for 30 seconds), and donations and applications follow.

For example, in Europe I'm expected to get 60 study credits a year at 28 hours invested per credit. Given the academic year is about 42 weeks or so here, I'm looking at a 42 hour workweek. I either study less than the system we all made up tells me I'm supposed to study and get a job, or get a job regardless and burn out, fail classes, get delayed and exacerbate my predicament, or I don't work much and borrow a big portion of that $50-60k. And this is in a situation where tuition fees are free.

Sometimes we forget that studying can be (and is at least supposed to be on paper) a full-time job equivalent in time invested, for year's on end, without remuneration but instead, costs. Some of us need a food pantry even if tuition fees were 'negative' $5k a year.

What we find is that some students spend much of their college time working, taking easy courses just to get the paper while spending their time earning money to stay afloat. And that just makes the whole 'certification inflation' problem even worse.