Isn't it also true that private institutions have seen an equally fast or faster growth in tuition expenses? That would invalidate the article. For reference btw, $3 to $6 in 1981 dollars is $7.50 to $15 in today's dollars according to Westegg.
Yes. Higher education is the only industry to give medicine a run for its money in cost inflation.
Some blame Baumol's cost disease[1], and that's probably an element of it, but so too are the multiplication of deanlets and deanlings[2], the cancerous growth of the physical facilities a of every school, spending per student being used as a proxy for quality by the USN&WR, the rise of bidding wars for celebraty faculty, ect.
Much or all these effects are enabled by incentives for those that run universities in which holding costs down play little to no role. That's partially a function of the student loan system and partially a function of lax oversight of "charitable" organizations in general.
Once you get a group of customers who have been told and internalized "price doesn't matter," then you will only see one response from the producers.
Producers who tried to avoid the game got left behind. When the students don't care about the cost, then it becomes a losing proposition to skip out on (say) the $10 million expense that only provides $1 million of value to your students.
