tk21769
Thu, 19 Oct 2017 10:43:56 +0000

Instructional spending per student, in many instances, doesn’t seem to correlate with the US News ranking or the perceived quality of education.

National universities ranked in the USNWR top 10 spend, on average, ~$75K per student on instruction.
National universities ranked 11-20, spend, on average, ~$47K per student on instruction.
National universities ranked 21-30, spend, on average, ~$30K per student on instruction.
Schools in the USNWR top 30 seem to spend up to ~10X as much as schools ranked in the 220s.

So, it appears to me that there is a correlation. Now, it may be confounded by various factors that affect some kinds of schools more than others. There is a lot of variance in the spending levels of some closely-ranked schools. Different universities follow two different accounting standards (GASB and FASB). Regional costs of living and economies of scale must be influencing the numbers. Nevertheless, it stands to reason that more spending tends to buy more quality (ceteris paribus, and at least up to a point.)