

Report Says Stanford Is First University to Raise $1 Billion in a Single Year - sheri
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/21/education/stanfords-fund-raising-topped-1-billion-in-2012.html?hpw&_r=0

======
lutusp
Why is this surprising? College tuition rates are rising so fast that a
university would have to squander its resources to be in the red.

Source:
[http://inflationdata.com/Inflation/Inflation_Articles/Educat...](http://inflationdata.com/Inflation/Inflation_Articles/Education_Inflation.asp)

According to the above, since 1985, while average expenses have risen by about
115%, college tuition has risen by almost 500%. Pretty soon college costs will
pass a critical threshold -- the cost of a degree simply won't pay for itself
in the world of jobs.

But it gets worse -- it turns out many college students aren't learning
anything:

Source:
[http://www.ssrc.org/publications/view/985FB16E-4023-E011-ADE...](http://www.ssrc.org/publications/view/985FB16E-4023-E011-ADEF-001CC477EC84/)

Quote: "According to their analysis of more than 2,300 undergraduates at
twenty-four institutions, 45 percent of these students demonstrate no
significant improvement in a range of skills—including critical thinking,
complex reasoning, and writing—during their first two years of college."

For those students, college is a very expensive, pointless activity.

