And the economics of rising costs are likely to force radical changes at many of our colleges and universities. The burden of attending Northwestern has tripled. Tuition increases at public universities, while smaller in absolute dollars, mirror those of private schools.
Universities are labor-intensive places, and they have become more so.
The number of faculty members has risen slightly faster than enrollments, and there has been an explosion in nonteaching staff. In the fall of 1976, universities nationwide had 31.5 administrators for every 1,000 students. By 1993 that number had grown to 51.4. Actually, they may do less work. Most of us today teach the same way Socrates did more than 2,300 years ago, albeit not as well.