An important reason why private college and university tuition has risen faster than the CPI during the past few decades is because competition for faculty members — whose potential earnings in other sectors have steadily improved — has driven up their pay faster than their productivity.
Responses
Responses weighted by each expert's confidence
Participant | University | Vote | Confidence | Bio/Vote History |
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Daron Acemoglu |
MIT | Bio/Vote History | ||
This is not the only reason but one factor. Universities are also spending more on other inputs, including more on administration.
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Alberto Alesina |
Harvard | Bio/Vote History | ||
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Joseph Altonji |
Yale | Bio/Vote History | ||
Faculty salary growth relative to instructional productivity matters, but other factors have played a more important role in tuition trends.
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Alan Auerbach |
Berkeley | Bio/Vote History | ||
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David Autor |
MIT | Bio/Vote History | ||
Maybe top colleges set a price at whatever insurer (or government lender) will pay then charge a co-pay to extract remaining surplus...
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Katherine Baicker |
University of Chicago | Bio/Vote History | ||
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Marianne Bertrand |
Chicago | Bio/Vote History | ||
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Raj Chetty |
Harvard | Did Not Answer | Bio/Vote History | |
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Judith Chevalier |
Yale | Bio/Vote History | ||
There are other important reasons too.
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Janet Currie |
Princeton | Bio/Vote History | ||
Productivity measured as students per professor may have decreased, but research productivity may have increased.
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David Cutler |
Harvard | Bio/Vote History | ||
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Angus Deaton |
Princeton | Bio/Vote History | ||
Sounds good for Booth, but implausible for history or English.
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Darrell Duffie |
Stanford | Bio/Vote History | ||
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Aaron Edlin |
Berkeley | Did Not Answer | Bio/Vote History | |
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Barry Eichengreen |
Berkeley | Bio/Vote History | ||
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Ray Fair |
Yale | Bio/Vote History | ||
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Pinelopi Goldberg |
Yale | Bio/Vote History | ||
Increases in administrative overhead, expansion of facilities and rising health/pension costs have been more important.
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Claudia Goldin |
Harvard | Bio/Vote History | ||
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Austan Goolsbee |
Chicago | Bio/Vote History | ||
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Michael Greenstone |
University of Chicago | Bio/Vote History | ||
I suspect this is true but it is also the case that returns to college attendance are way up, so faculty/university productivity is way up.
-see background information here |
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Robert Hall |
Stanford | Bio/Vote History | ||
Higher ed is like other human-service-intensive activities, bound to become more expensive relative to goods production.No special force.
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Bengt Holmström |
MIT | Bio/Vote History | ||
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Caroline Hoxby |
Stanford | Bio/Vote History | ||
This is ONE poss supply explanation.There are many demand and policy explan about which most economists answering this Q know little. Bad Q!
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Kenneth Judd |
Stanford | Bio/Vote History | ||
Productivity growth will be slow as long as we use current methods. This could change drastically if we move to online modes of instruction.
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Anil Kashyap |
Chicago Booth | Bio/Vote History | ||
too many competing hypotheses and I don't know enough about the evidence to pick between them
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Pete Klenow |
Stanford | Bio/Vote History | ||
The price of skill has surely risen, so that has to be a contributor. But colleges probably got better too. And Bennett's Hypothesis.
-see background information here |
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Edward Lazear |
Stanford | Bio/Vote History | ||
Wages of all educated service workers have risen over time. No evidence and competition does not imply increase greater than productivity.
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Jonathan Levin |
Stanford | Did Not Answer | Bio/Vote History | |
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Eric Maskin |
Harvard | Bio/Vote History | ||
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William Nordhaus |
Yale | Bio/Vote History | ||
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Maurice Obstfeld |
Berkeley | Bio/Vote History | ||
While some faculty salaries have risen faster than productivity, these make up a small fraction of total university operating costs.
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Emmanuel Saez |
Berkeley | Bio/Vote History | ||
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José Scheinkman |
Columbia University | Bio/Vote History | ||
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Richard Schmalensee |
MIT | Bio/Vote History | ||
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Hyun Song Shin |
Princeton | Did Not Answer | Bio/Vote History | |
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James Stock |
Harvard | Did Not Answer | Bio/Vote History | |
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Nancy Stokey |
University of Chicago | Bio/Vote History | ||
The rising skill premium is probably at work here.
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Richard Thaler |
Chicago Booth | Bio/Vote History | ||
Seems like this would vary a lot among fields.
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Christopher Udry |
Northwestern | Bio/Vote History | ||
It's not clear to me that this is an important factor outside a limited number of disciplines.
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Luigi Zingales |
Chicago Booth | Did Not Answer | Bio/Vote History | |
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