It mostly buys more administrators. That’s the thrust of this Forbes piece by Tom Lindsay. The largest chunk of increased college spending across the board is on administration. Financial aid gets more generous, schools then charge more, and hiring more campus bureaucrats soaks up much of the money. We’d probably have far fewer Vice Chancellors for Diversity and Inclusion if it weren’t for the spendthrift ways of Uncle Sam.

One bright spot is the University of Texas system, where officials are taking a serious look at the burden of keeping so many administrators around.