Every few years, I return to a consideration of ever-increasing college prices (2009, 2011). In these reports, I describe college pricing as an elephant because the issues around it are large, and depending on one's perspective, one can come to quite different conclusions as to what the beast looks like. In particular, I have looked at undergraduate prices (tuition, fees, etc) at private, non-profit four year institutions from three different perspectives: the public at large, students and parents, and the institutions themselves. I was stimulated to return to this issue by the recent release by the National Association of College and University Business Officers (NACUBO) of their 2013 Tuition Discounting Study, which provided me with some new thoughts about the institutional view of the beast. This year, I am adding a fourth perspective, that of government, since some interesting issues have arisen there recently.
