tk, instructional spending is usually inconclusive and impossible to interpret since university budgets are purposely opaque and notoriously tangled. I am sure Chicago’s instructional spending per student is higher than Cal’s or Michigan, but I doubt it is materially higher when you measure spending between those three universities the same way, factor in economies of scale, and adjust for salary differences as a result of cost of living and percentage of the faculty that teach high-paying disciplines (such as Medicine, Business, Law, Physics) vs low-paying salaries (like Art, Music, Philosophy etc…)