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Duke Economics Working Paper #97-16

Cost Escalation in Elite Higher Education: Lessons from Four Institutions

Charles T. Clotfelter

Abstract

This paper summarizes the principal empirical findings and major arguments contained in Buying the Best: Cost Escalation in Elite Higher Education (Princeton University Press, 1996). Using detailed unpublished data on expenditures, faculty teaching, class size, and other items, the study focuses on expenditure patterns in three universities - Duke, Harvard, and Chicago - and one college, Carleton, over a 15-year period.

Published in Journal of Economic Literature, Vol. 35, No. 2, June 1997, pp. 803-805.