The report suggests three factors that are driving the increase: exploding administrative staffs, a building boom and subsidies to athletic programs. Especially noteworthy was the finding that even as state governments slashed their support for their flagship universities, the schools continued to increase spending. They more than made up for the cuts with increases in tuition. For every one dollar in state support that was lost, these schools, on average, increased tuition and fees by $2.40.
But that apparently did not happen at UW-Madison, where tuition was frozen for about a decade. The UW was not one of the six schools that the Journal highlighted in its story, but it probably was part of the database of 50 schools that fed into the report’s median numbers.