Do Elite Universities Really Need This Much Money?

In 1969, the Ivy League schools collected an average of $89,200 in revenues per student in today’s dollars. By 2019, the real revenues of Ivy League universities had exploded to $264,800 per student—a nearly threefold increase over 50 years.

You read that correctly— for every one of their students, Ivy League schools collect more than a quarter million dollars in revenue each year.

These are the findings of a new working paper by economists Zachary Bleemer and Jesse Rothstein, who have constructed an impressive longitudinal dataset of universities’ revenues and spending over the past several decades. Bleemer and Rothstein find that universities’ per-student revenues overall have increased: the average four-year institution collected $57,800 per student in 2019, up from $24,300 per student (in today’s dollars) in 1969. State flagship universities’ revenues have more than doubled in real terms, from $38,900 to $83,900 per student.

But the growth in revenues among America’s most elite institutions has been the most spectacular. Ivy League schools now collect over four and a half times as much revenue per student as the typical four-year school.