I believe there are a number of things driving up costs. For example when I was in my undergraduate program the entire network system was run by the head guy, 1 lab manager, 2 tech's, and 2 work study students (1 was me). In 2005 or so (last time I talked to a family who worked there) they had 25 or so fulltime professionals to run the network...and use had gone through the roof. It was 2 people who handled the various standards and accreditations and programs - now it is something like 10.

Since high school has gotton so bad, so training afterwards is required. For some perhaps just a tech college.

Yes it made sense for me.
I went back to grad school recently and that made sense too. The job I had right out of college now demands a masters...but that is ridiculous for that job.

I was looking at some MIT lectures on introductory comp sci on ITunes U.

Was amazed that they get a 55 yr old guy with a PhD to lecture kids on how to write an airline checkin app in Python.

If you are studying Plato then there may be some benefit in taking an intro course from a seasoned scholar. But in other cases there isn't.

Erm, Professors are not the reason costs have doubled. Tenured Professors are increasingly being replaced by adjuncts as they retire. Those that remain are paid less (on average, please don't cite Terry Tao or another superstar as an example) compared to previous generations.

What Colleges are doing is spending a lot of money on fancy new student centers, gyms, and sports teams. Winning sports teams bring in money of course, but losing ones operate at a loss.

Also, one thing that is legit is technology. As sciences advance it takes more and more money to buy the tools needed for research.

But see the second paragraph. We need to ask ourselves, are schools for learning or for play time?

Nearly 1 in 6 student loans is in default:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/09/business/once-a-student-now-dogged-by-collection-agencies.html

So college is not working out for a lot of people!

Diversity centers, multicultural centers, layers and layers of extra burocracy, lawyers, and 100 new ways to spoil students. They all add to costs.
The other side of the coin, is most people aren't paying sticker price, either truely, through grants/scholarships, or fakely through loans. practically no one actually pays it anymore.
Picture you are selling apples, you were selling at $.50 per apple, gov't decides to subsidise apples at $100 per. WHat price do you sell your apples for. Answer: between $100 and $100.50.

"What Colleges are doing is spending a lot of money on fancy new student centers, gyms, and sports teams. Winning sports teams bring in money of course, but losing ones operate at a loss."

Yes, facilities are one area. The biggest growth area has been in administration, which belies the idea that technology should have made the administration more efficient. Also, the administrators are frequently paid far more than their market value, particularly in areas where the federal government mandates that certain jobs be created, such as the proverbial mid-six-figure "assistant provost for diversity and climate".

(BTW, most colleges have eliminated their men's non-revenue sports due to Title IX.)

If I had to do it over again, I would have taken the small amount I had saved and set aside to go to college (worked my entire way through because I hardly had enough to cover the first year of community college) and invested in gold and silver and started a house cleaning business or something.

I also probably (if I had to do it over again) would have gone to a trade school to become a welder.

Anything actually that would have set me up to have been able to have been self employed by now - something not entirely regulated, and tax/permited/fee'd to death.

Perhaps a hair stylist....

At the time, these jobs didn't seem to make a lot of money - but I think now days they are laughing their way to the bank. Not having graduated in complete debt and having to sustain that extra large payment each month with a higher wage ....working at shit corporate jobs, filling a seat.

Being able to have struggled financially (like I already have to some extent) but being able to charge for my time and manage my own jobs and expenses, with use of the tax code would have been the route to go - even though things get tough.

It might sound like I am being ungrateful for being employed right now (i can assure you I am not) but there is something very depressing about being beholden to a corporate job you hate (that does not utilize your strengths), in order to pay off the debt you incurred to supposedly "get there".

I was sold a bill of goods. Once my college loans are paid off - Hopefully I will be in a better position to take a little more financial risk on in going out on my own.

I pray for it, daily.

I would never, ever, ever recommend to a young person these days to go to college (current climate assumed)unless they care to become an engineer or a doctor.

I think about how much money I had to pay for new text books every year - because the used ones from the year prior were already out of date and the college professors got kick backs from the publishers.....it makes me sick. I wound up taking out loans for the books in community colleges, even though I was only paying $13 per credit.

It is such a scam.

Winning sports teams bring in money of course, but losing ones operate at a loss.

Ummm, you mean football and mens basketball. Most of the rest are not revenue producers, except the occasional baseball school in the south or west were they may get 10-12,000 fans in on a Tuesday night game.

If you're lucky, you'll have adequate revenue to keep the athletic department at break even or even in the black. Many universities have made the student athlete scholarships into endowed scholarships, so they no longer cost them money.

Thank the broadcasters for dropping buckets of money on conferences for the rights to broadcast games.

College worked for me, but I got lucky.

Got a BA in Anthropology, from a small university nearby. The professors were great, and very well-respected in their specialties. Adjuncts never taught in this department, although they were pretty common in other departments.

I had intended to go to graduate school, but then I got married and the ex (who had previously agreed and knew my intent) put a stop to that. I couldn't find a job, and certainly not one that paid the salary he demanded, so after some discussion he agreed I could return for technical writing (I paid).

When I re-started school, I found a job working for a small voc rehab firm. I spent nearly two years working as an office assistant, and my duties changed over that time. For one, I was better at editing than the other girls, and for another I started looking for ways to make the counselors' jobs easier (designed better forms, etc.).

One day a competitor (who rented basement space from us) swung by the desk to chat. He discovered my degree was in Anthropology and was excited because his was too. He said I should look into voc rehab, and so I did.

I asked my boss and they stuck me in. They had very limited work available for an intern at that time, so I divided my duties betweeen office work and interning. My internship did take longer than if I were full-time, but I made it happen, got the additional education requirements completed, got my certification, and now I have a decent job that's incredibly stressful, but still very interesting.

Was it worth it? For me, I suppose it was. But I was on an ROTC scholarship, and that was back in the early 80s anyway, before college costs went from high to stratospheric.

Would I recommend a college degree today? Depends, I guess. Calling it an "investment in oneself" without calculating a likely return on the investment seems pretty unwise. Honestly, I don't think my current job should require a college degree. Some college-level math classes, maybe, followed by some kind of apprenticeship, might be just as good. But I'm with a government contractor, and it's tough to bid on jobs if your people don't have degrees. The government shoots itself in the toes that way.

It depends who you are as to whether or not it will be worth it. I see 3 main factors in the decision:

1.) Are you smart and motivated enough to do well in college? If you are fresh out of high school, did you do well there? If not fresh out of high school, what's changed since high school that will make you better at school now. Keep in mind your skill set for schoolwork will have atrophied severely.

2.) Can you afford to pay for the school you are planning to go to with cash and scholarships (not loans)? If not, try a cheaper school like a community college. If you can't even afford that, then don't go, but you should probably be able to afford comm. college with grants if your income is that low.

3.) Are you going to a school that's worth a damn? Most for-profits aren't. If you see it advertised on TV, it's probably not worth going to.

Was college worth it for me?
For me yes, but I was not your typical student. I had partial scholarships and no loans. I went the hard sciences route, which landed me a job while still in school. The job paid for my last year.
I then graduated in 3.5 years, probably paying for about 1 yrs tuition.

Is college worth it?
With tuition going up consistently faster than inflation, it is a question of WHEN will a degree be not worth it, not if. (some already passed that point)
It very much depends on your major. They graduate way more history majors than will ever find work in the buisness, so it is a mostly useless degree. Engineers, hard science, and comp sci, will do great. Other majors something in between.

It also depends on knowing what you want to do, College is not really a gcost effective way to figure that out. If you don't know, go try working at palces, see what people actually do first.

Other things to consider the typical sudent take about 5.5 yrs to fininsh a 4yr degree. That along with increased tuition, and loss of an extra year of work is part of the student debt problem.

It was definitely worth it for me, although I started in 1989 when tuition and fees at UT were $750/semester. I also a) got my undergrad degree in electrical engineering; b) won scholarships and summer interns that paid for my last two years; c) obtained a Ph.D in the physical sciences, where they pay you to go to grad school.

But now? The rates are ridiculous and the quality of the education has not improved. (A good bit of this can be blamed on the students who, as McArdle noted, are going for a credential rather than an education and get pissy and vindictive on their student evaluations when teachers try to push them. Result: grade inflation.) College can be a great place but I have seen way too many students marking time at great expense.

The first thing we need to do is stop requiring the credential for jobs that don't need it. I had students in my class with career military experience who were only getting a degree so that their job applications would stop being round-filed by human resources before they got to the right people.

I was one of those students who went to college for a credential, so that my job application wouldn't get round-filed by human resources.

I still didn't expect my teachers to give me good grades just for buying the degree, though.

I also agree with the comment that college isn't a good place to figure out what you want to do for a living. And let's face it, going to college to study something "interesting," "for the education" at these prices is a foolish, expensive hobby, unless your parents are filthy rich and willing to pay for it. 95% of the people there are just doing it so they can get jobs.

Seems like it makes more sense to job-hop around and try different things to find out what kind of work you want to do, and THEN go to college - maybe.

I do see things from the point of view of employers. A high school diploma doesn't even imply literacy anymore. How else are you going to weed your way through thousands of resumes?

Google Griggs vs Duke Power if you want to know why that 4 year degree is used to screen applicants for jobs that don't really require a degree. A decade later, I wouldn't have been hired for the job I already had and was doing, quite well. Nice system we built.

Having established monopoly gatekeeping powers, the universities are making them pay. Administration is the main driver of costs. We have a new Cabinet Level Department of Education to make rules and a lot of administrators to make sure they are followed. None of which taught a single student anything, but they paid for it.

Did it make sense for me? Heard of the GI Bill? My cost/benefit ratio was very good - I doubt I paid $2000 out of my own pocket for my degree and I make a rather large multiple of that annually. Yours surely cost more and probably pays less.

"Diversity centers, multicultural centers"

They build these so that they can retain all the minority students they recruit. My old school built a ridiculous looking Native American center, just so the Indians they dragoon into enrolling would feel wanted and not drop out and return to the rez.

Then of course you have the Black Studies programs and Afro student offices so they can take care of all the junior college talent they recruit for the football team.

Formal education is a requirement, if only to deal with the idiots you run into every day who say things like "But you don't have a Master's degree! I didn't know you knew FILL IN BLANK or I would have given you that plum assignment/raise promotion/job benefits/perks".

It's not just what you learn, it's a camouflage device to defend against the institutional stupids.

It worked for me, but that's because engineering is one area that really benefits from formalized training. (Or at least it used to, back when the schools actually taught students stuff that was relevant.) Plus the school that I went to was a great bargain at the time. I graduated in 1983 with $7000 in loans (I interned and paid my own way after my first year), which seemed like a lot at the time, but of course now it would be a drop in the bucket.

An ex-coworker had a comp-sci degree. He did end up working for Hitachi building drives. But his eight months with us -- he said he learned about 100% about actual computer systems than his whole time in college.

I view it the same way. Take a job doing help desk and learn the tech side from the Level II & III people. We're willing to teach if you want to be intelligent. No college needed.