Swarthmore Case Study

There is not a rational reason why, Lafayette College had phased 8 percent increases every year for online publications, but we did and we had to pay them. Those kind of costs, laboratory equipment and all of the things that go into producing outstanding educational opportunities and research, all of it is growing in rates in excess of inflation and in excess of the basic revenue sources the institution has.

The third reason that costs are continuing to rise, is perhaps slightly more controllable, and that is competition. We are all invested, in all kinds of ways, in doing better than our pears. Higher ed is a funny animal, that at Haverford, I talked every day to my college at Swarthmore, but I also wanted to beat them every day. So, we collaborate, we share information, but we compete with each other. If it turns out that Swarthmore is getting a climbing wall, we need to get a climbing wall, or a swimming pool or whatever it is, including serious academic investments.

So, we see duplicative investment in all kinds of ways on our campuses and there are ways in which competition can be in videos. I will say that that is typically overstated in the media, about the degree in which higher education can’t control it’s our costs, but it is a factor and it is worth considering. Another is financial aid. If we want to live our mission fully …show more content…
Those are the three most obvious of these factors and I will run through the others much more quickly. Erosion of public trust. There is something fundamental, almost sacred, about the relationship historically between educational institutions and the students that they serve. That has been eroded, and with that comes very serious consequences. We are aware of all of the evidence that there are very serious issues of sexual misconduct on many of our college campuses; that is not true, on every one of our college