“Why Does College Cost So Much?”

I’ve come across a couple of interesting articles analyzing the reasons why higher education is so expensive, especially relative to other things that people value.  This article in Forbes.com, “Why Does College Cost So much?” is a summary of a forthcoming book by Robert Archibald and David Feldman, and it rings true to me.

The reasons in the nutshell?

• Higher ed is an extremely labor intensive industry (they describe it as “artisanal”) in that a lot of the sort of technological improvements that have made other things cheaper by reducing labor costs don’t work in fields like higher education, medicine, law, and banking.
• Higher ed requires a highly educated labor force, which is also expensive.
• Technological change in the rest of the world impacts higher ed in that it has to keep up with the “cutting edge” in order to effectively educate doctors, scientists, etc. who will make use of that technology.

I’m not so sure I agree with that last one, but interesting points overall. The comments are also pretty interesting here.