Where Does Your Tuition Go?

In the cafeterias, the food is overstarchy, underflavored and generally lacking in nutritional value. Lecture halls are so cavernous and overcrowded that binoculars may be required to read the lips of the professor. Dormitory rooms, carefully modeled after prison cells, are strictly BYOB: bring your own bookshelves, blankets, bulletin boards.

For $15,165 a year, you were expecting linen service?

Tuition at private colleges, along with room and board fees, rose dramatically during the past decade, easily outpacing the rate of inflation. Tuition was one cash cow that universities could milk through the '80s, especially after the recession dried up public funding and endowment returns. The tuition free-for-all, however, was not cost free. Each time tuition went up, more incoming students required financial assistance, and many of those already paying their own way suddenly needed aid. To cover the rising bills, universities -- you guessed it -- often raised tuition again. As of 1986, 38% of all public-university students and 65% at private institutions received assistance; figures to be released later this year are expected to show little change.

Tuition revenues usually go into general funds, which pay for everything from staff salaries to cutting the grass. To keep high-paying industries from plucking off promising science talent, universities must provide laboratories furnished with state-of-the-art equipment. To achieve prestige, many schools engage in bidding wars for big-name professors who command $100,000 salaries. Faculty salaries rose through the '80s to make up for lagging paychecks a decade earlier; benefits and health care also escalated.

As high as tuitions now are, they will continue to climb. The hikes, which last year averaged 15% at public schools and 7% at private institutions, will be repeated in the coming year.

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CREDIT: [TMFONT 1 d #666666 d {Source: National Center for Education Statistics}]CAPTION: Footing the Bill