Comment by wasdfff | Hacker News Reader

Comment by wasdfff | Hacker News Reader

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I can tell you that despite what you might figure, buildings really do get used. I went to a massive university with 50k people, and a campus so big it took a half hour to traverse yet was packed with massive buildings the whole way. For the most part the buildings would be booked up during the regular term, but during exams, then they were absolutely maxed. All the study spaces in the 13 story main library, 6 story engineer library, and all the other scattered libraries would be full. There would be no free chairs at all. People would resort to studying in empty classrooms during finals, which usually worked better since you had a closed off room to meet with your group, space, AV hookup, whiteboards, etc.

If there wasn’t a need for more and more rooms in a college, they wouldn’t get built. It’s not some conspiracy.

The college that first triggered this observation/concern was one such 50k public state university, but the observation was alumni-based, not student-based and I recognize mileage may vary across schools and appreciate your comment.

My concern is not of a conspiracy, but of misplaced incentives that have gone awry. (And which are slated to get even worse if we start periodically forgiving loans which I have mixed feelings about.) My perception is that college/university prices have drastically outpaced inflation since inflation shrunk in the early 1980s and the quality of education provided has not concomitantly increased.

At least some analyses from the National Board of Economics Research show that from 1987-2010, "expansions in borrowing limits drive 40% of the tuition jump and represent the single most important factor [of tuition increases from 1987 to 2010]" (https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w21967/w219..., page 4.) and "We also find that increased grant aid contributes 17% to the rise in tuition"

Tuition increase is not directly related to the subject of campus design and spending on campus buildings, but is part of the origin of my skepticism and critical eye towards college/universities as a societal model, the thesis of the original article.

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