<p>Thanks., Idad. I am not surprised about the proportion of tenured profs. Many were probably hired in the late 60s. They were expected to retire and make way for younger faculty but lifting the retirement age has made this impossible. I once met a prof whose department had only one non-tenured person. This meant that no matter how stellar the non-tenured person was, s/he could not get tenured as the department wanted to have a modicum of flexibility!
Still, it would appear that Swarthmore has a higher proportion of full profs than of associate profs with tenure, hence the $92k average.</p>
<p>But your general argument about the costs of enlarging the student body while maintaining the faculty ratio, housing arrangements, labs, and other amenities that attracted students to begin with is very valid. And spots in HYPSM and top LACs will continue to be scarce commodities.</p>