Mysteries of higher ed financing
By 
University of Colorado-Boulder operating costs, fiscal years 2009 and 2024.
ALL FIGURES HAVE BEEN CONVERTED TO CONSTANT 2023 DOLLARS
Total operating revenues:
FY2009: $1.368 billion
FY2024: $2.256 billion
Increase in constant dollars: 65%
Undergraduate in-state tuition:
FY2009: $4,215
FY2024: $13,624
Increase in constant dollars: 223%
Average full-time faculty salaries:
FY2009: $129,123
FY2024: $116,731
Decrease in constant dollars: 10%
Haven’t gotten to upper administration salaries quite yet, but I’m working on it.
To be scrupfair, enrollment did increase by 22%. But still, I’m morbidly curious about where all this money is going, exactly. Maybe somebody should look into that.
Oops, somebody already did — those same upper administrators just paid McKinsey & Co. some as yet to me unknown but no doubt eye-popping sum to do a financial analysis of the campus. TL;DR after all those fresh-faced recent MBA grads ran their Excel numbers: Belt-tightening across the campus is required, to deal with rising operating costs.
Oh yeah, state appropriations as share of the total operating budget:
FY2009: 4%
FY 2024: 5%