The Chronicle of Higher Education has posted a short video where they ask people on the streets and also higher education professionals why college costs so much. 

The first lesson is that the people on the street have a fairly good idea what is going on, citing faculty costs and market forces as key issues driving up costs. 

The second lesson is that part of the reason costs in higher education have increased at more than double the rate of inflation overall is that we haven't made college any more efficient in the past few decades. While manufacturing and information processing have become progressively more efficient, requiring fewer labor hours to do the same work, the pressure on colleges is actually to keep the student-facutly ratio low as one sign of a personalized high quality education. 

The third lesson is that colleges are in a competitive market that has rewarded them more for enhancing their quality, ammenities and reputation than for containing costs.  Whether it is cutting programs or not offering a state-of-the-art sport and fitness center, colleges that cut features to cut costs worry that they are losing out to the competition in the battle to attract the best students.

The fourth and final lesson is that the student who finds himself $200,000 in debt obviously isn't getting the best value from his college education, and should have read my book.