Follow the money

While student fees keep going up, institutional spending is being used more and more for things other than students’ education. Research and public service have been the big winners in the past decade, with both almost doubling their budgets at public universities. Instruction, meanwhile, has received only minor increases, even though it still receives the most funding. Here’s a look at public institutional spending, per full-time-equivalent student, in major categories from 1987 and 2005 (numbers have been tweaked to account for inflation).

Source: The Delta Cost Project

Brain Freeze

Students living 10 miles from campus who ride bikes to school rather than driving can save $2,000 a year.