Parents, you know college is expensive. If you are a student and unaware of the price tag be grateful to your parents. Do you know why college is expensive and where all that tuition money goes?

The answer is finally given as Williams College, one of the nation’s best liberal arts colleges, is analyzed.

Why College Costs So Much: A Look At Williams

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — This year, it costs about $60,000 in tuition, fees and room and board to attend one of the nation’s most selective liberal arts colleges.

With financial aid, the average student pays about half of that.

One example: Williams College, in western Massachusetts.

The cost there is 10 times higher than it was 40 years ago, even though the consumer price index during that period rose only fourfold.

What’s So Expensive?

As Williams President Adam Falk sees it, the No. 1 reason for the cost of college is the people.

“We spend about two-thirds of the college’s budget on compensation and benefits for our faculty and staff,” Falk said.

Especially costly: the faculty.

Two years ago, the average salary for a full professor at Williams was $137,000 a year, which puts it among the best-paying 3 percent of all colleges. And it’s a 47 percent increase over 12 years.

At Williams, salary is only two-thirds of the compensation. There are health insurance and child care, and all Williams employees with children in college are entitled to $24,000 a year toward each child’s education.

To appreciate labor costs, Falk compares the faculty to another group of highly trained workers: a string quartet. He says you could make it more productive by removing one of the instruments.

“I mean, after all, there are two violins, and really, do you need two violins?” Falk asked. “Couldn’t you play it with one violin? You could reduce the cost by 25 percent.”

In the 1960s, economists William Baumol and William Bowen pointed out that it takes the same number of musicians to play a string quartet today as it did in Beethoven’s day. So the productivity has not increased in 200 years. That explains why the cost of going to a live classical musical performance has gone up more than the cost of a drinking glass.