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If you have paid a college tuition bill recently, perhaps the sticker shock has abated and your children have been good enough to friend you on Facebook so you can see what they are doing on your dime.
What probably still lingers, however, is the desire to ask some pointed questions of the people who are doing the educating. Where does all that money go? And why can't the price tag fall for a change?
Earlier this year, the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities announced with some pride that the average increase in tuition and fees at private institutions this school year would be the smallest in 37 years -- 4.3 percent, just a little higher than inflation.
Is this where we are supposed to stand up and cheer?
To get some perspective, I set out to find a college president with an M.B.A. and some experience outside the academy. I found one at Lafayette College in Easton, Pa. Its president, Daniel H. Weiss, is an expert in medieval art, but he also worked as a management consultant at Booz Allen Hamilton. So he knows his way around a corporate restructuring.
Lafayette does not have the strongest name recognition and tries to set itself apart through its location near both New York City and Philadelphia, its strong engineering program and liberal arts offerings, and by being one of the smallest colleges to compete in N.C.A.A. Division I athletics.
That it is not a top-tier college by most measures, however, makes Lafayette an excellent test case as it and other private colleges cross the $50,000 annual cost threshold in shaky economic times.
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