Tuition Went Up. The Classroom Didn’t.

The quiet disconnect between tuition and reality

There’s a question that keeps coming back, and nobody in business schools seems particularly eager to answer it: why did the price go up so much?

Because if you walk into the classroom, the answer is not sitting there.

Teaching hasn’t improved at the same speed as pricing. Not even close. In many cases, it’s gone the other way. Larger groups, less interaction, more standardized delivery. You’re not buying a sharper learning experience. You’re buying access to one.

And the people actually delivering that experience? Often adjuncts and professionals, paid around 80 euros an hour, so the cost explosion isn’t happening at the core product.

Then you look at administration.

To be fair, some things did improve. IT systems are better. Platforms are smoother. AI is starting to show up. But alongside that, layers of coordination, reporting, marketing, partnerships, rankings, and internal structures have multiplied. Quietly, steadily, and without a clear link to what happens in the room.

It’s not that nothing improved. It’s that the growth is disconnected.

And then there’s the physical product.

For the price students are paying, you would expect a step change in environment. Instead, in many schools, you’re still sitting in rooms that haven’t fundamentally evolved. Same layouts, same constraints, same passive setup. The space hasn’t caught up with what we claim learning should be.

Then comes the sacred word schools love to sell: network.

Yes, a network can matter. Of course it can. But most of the time it is sold as if volume automatically creates value. It does not. In practice, the bigger the cohorts get, the thinner the network becomes. Too many people, too little depth, too little real connection. And no, a crowded LinkedIn alumni page is not a community!

And schools miss something even more basic about brand.

The more people carry the same diploma, the less distinctive it becomes. That is not cynicism. That is market logic. If quality also starts slipping because selection, rigor, and learning depth are diluted, then the value drops twice. Once through volume. Once through weaker substance.

So what are students actually paying for?

Increasingly, it feels like a bundle: brand, signaling, access, and optional learning attached to it.

From where I sit, I don’t control pricing, budgets, or structures.

But I do control what happens inside the room.

So I treat this as a constraint. Strip out anything that doesn’t create learning and end value. Push students into real situations. Make every hour do actual work. That is the only part of the system I can still defend with a straight face.

If the price is premium, the experience should feel earned.

Right now, too often, it just feels… priced.