Why are US Universities so Expensive?

By Felix von Wendorff. Only a couple of decades ago, attending a US university as noble as UC Berkley cost $540 a year (US$2,756 in 2010 dollars). Now the pages have turned, and attending this fine public institution will set a family back more than $30,000 a year. At the uber-elite quasi-for-profit schools like Harvard and Stanford, the annual price tag can be upwards of $60,000. I say quasi-for-profit because they are not actually for-profits; they are research universities that use their profits to finance research. More...