Increases in the number of staff members; the costs of equipping and maintaining modern classrooms, laboratories, and libraries; and increases in faculty salaries restrict the supply, and as a larger number of high school graduates decide that a college education is essential, the demand for a college education increases. Given these two effects, what would we have expected the cost of college education to do, go up or go down?

TABLE 1.2 THE REAL PRICES OF EGGS AND OF A COLLEGE EDUCATION 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010 Consumer Price Index 38.8 82.4 130.7 172.2 218.1 Nominal Prices Grade A Large Eggs $0.61 $0.84 $1.01 $0.91 $1.54 College Education $2, 112 $3,502 $7.619 $12,976 $21,550 Real Prices ($1970) Grade A Large Eggs $0.61 $0.40 $0.30 $0.21 $0.27 College Education $2,112 $1,649 $2,262 $2,924 $3,835