I notice that Peter Wood quoted part of my comment (and erroneously attributed it to someone else).

I hope he read all of my comment, about the inexorable rise in higher education costs beyond the rate of inflation.

"There's really nobody watching this stuff though, at most schools. Few faculty have the urge to delve into budgets and figure out what is going on, let alone the wherewithal to do something about it. And this assumes that they have access to the budget information in any digestible form. Somebody should be watching this more closely, but my take is it's not happening."

Sorry for the misattribution, Mike. I'll fix it tomorrow morning. I did read your whole comment--I just misjudged which name went with which post. As to the inexorable rise in "costs" (surely you mean prices: tuition increases generally outpace the rise in actual costs), I've been writing on this subject for over a decade. And "inexorable" does seem the right word. But wait. The current tightening of credit in the student loan market may put that inexorability to the test. Colleges and universities have gotten away with these terrific price increases because they have convinced students and their parents to load up on debt. If tighening credit markets make that harder for many and impossible for some, the only direction prices can move is down.

No, Peter, by the rise in "costs" I mean the whole shebang -- budgets in various categories -- expenditures. Tuition is only part of the picture. And yes, I do think the rise is inexorable, for reasons having little to do with the modes of analysis I see with increasing frequency at sites like these.

And I do know a bit about university budgets -- see my post today up above about the admirable lucidity of ASU's budget reporting.

If blogs like this are to be taken seriously on budgetary and financial matters, the posters are going to have to get up to speed on this simple stuff.