Well, I think its of by a an integer multiple > 2. Maybe not 10x
I'd say certainly not 10X
I look for things like this because authors often like to slant things.
I think here is more a matter of looking for your keys under the lamppost because that's where you have enough light to see them. Tuition and fee increases over time is a simply understood and relatively easily available datapoint. Calculations of total costs of educating university students are more complex, less precisely defined, more and uncertain, and less available.
In any case what's your take on the central point -
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While this phenomenon certainly occurs, its role in soaring college tuition has been greatly exaggerated. In a 2012 study, economists Robert Martin and Carter Hill analyzed the various trends underlying ever-higher expenditures at public research universities to determine how much of the increases were attributable to Baumol’s cost disease.
Salaries and benefits at universities rise faster than inflation, consistent with the cost disease. But compensation can rise for different reasons. If labor costs rise because the compensation of professors rises, the cost disease is likely responsible. But if labor costs rise because universities are hiring different sorts of employees, such as administrators, something besides the cost disease must be the culprit.
Using this method, the authors determine that Baumol’s cost disease accounts for just 16% of the total increase in spending at public research universities from 1987 to 2008.
forbes.com
Personally I would have guessed higher than 16 percent, but probably not a majority, and almost certainly not a vast majority. |
