By leaving cost out of the formula, it was as if U.S. News had handed college presidents a gilded checkbook. They had a commandment to maximize performance in fifteen areas, and keeping costs low wasn’t one of them. In fact, if they raised prices, they’d have more resources for addressing the areas where they were being measured. Tuition has skyrocketed ever since. Between 1985 and 2013, the cost of higher education rose by more than 500 percent, nearly four times the rate of inflation.
