The latest news: For those of you paying for college (parents and students),
here is a bracing report on national trends .... 

Old news: Spending on rec+sports outpaces that on academics.

[Quote:]
A national trend report and cost-comparison tool just released
by the Delta Project on Postsecondary Costs, Productivity, and
Accountability provides significant insight into how thousands
of the nation’s colleges and universities are spending their
resources, with implications for what that means for “the new
normal” in college spending.

The report – Trends in College Spending 1998-2008: Where Does
 the Money Come From? Where Does It Go? What Does It Buy? –
examines national college spending and resource trends in the
years leading up to the current recession....
.........
Major findings in the report:
- Sharp increases in spending between 1998 and 2003 by a
handful of colleges and universities, creating competitive
pressures on spending everywhere.
- Regular cycles in funding for both public and private non-profit
institutions: up in good times, down in bad. The one constant is
growing dependence on tuition revenues, now the most stable
and predictable source of revenues in higher education....
- The share of spending going to pay for instruction has
consistently declined when revenues decline, relative to
growth in spending in academic and student support and
administration.... [Endquote/snip]

FOR MORE, PLEASE GO HERE ....