Martin Center: The Bennett Hypothesis Turns 30

I don't like Bennett; but, then, he wouldn't like me, either.
But I now think he was right about more than I gave him credit for.
I'm inclined to think that there's significant truth in the Bennett hypothesis; but I'm ignorant of economics, and have no special knowledge of college costs.
My own university is afflicted by a rapidly metastasizing administration and quasi-administration.
(Though we've also got faculty--e.g. in grievance studies--that we could surely do without...)
The campus also becomes more palatial by the semester. Someone who attended my humble, third-tier land-grant school with two directions in the name back in the '80s simply wouldn't believe the place I teach now. Of course people in general are fantastically more wealthy than they were 30 years ago. So it's not the most meaningful comparison. But it's impossible to believe that we couldn't cut tuition if we cut out some of the luxuries around this jernt.
OTOH, if I understand the administration's argument, it's roughly this--and here I state it as if the administration were speaking directly to a student complaining about tuition:

Yep, we could cut tuition by cutting down on luxuries. We don't, strictly speaking, need our palatial fitness center, nor our new two-story food court complex, nor the new "convocation center," nor any of about a hundred other unnecessary amenities you see about you. But if we didn't have those things, you wouldn't be here. You'd be at a different school--a school that does have those amenities--complaining about their tuition and fees... Without the bells and whistles, the students who we want to come here...won't. So this is all actually your fault when you think about it...

And I think there's likely some truth in that, too.
I also find the cost disease hypothesis rather plausible.
Hell, I'll just take all the explanations...better safe than sorry.