Higher Ed: Rules Increase Costs

The growth in higher education costs is hardly a secret to parents and students. As evidenced by findings of a recent survey commissioned by the American Action Forum that found 92 percent of respondents agreed that college is too expensive. Published tuition and fees have outpaced inflation and increased 28 percent during the last ten years. There are countless factors driving these spikes, but increasingly, legislators and universities have targeted regulations as a primary culprit for rising costs. Indeed, the Department of Education today imposes more than double the amount of paperwork it did a decade ago, likely increasing the amount of administrative staff colleges and universities need to manage for compliance, and playing a role in higher tuition bills across the country.