My buddy Bob Tischer is currently teaching economics on
contract at the University of New Hampshire in Durham . So while in northern New
England to ski, I thought I’d pay him and his wife Susan a visit. We worked
together for a bit way back when in 1998 at OCI, a small health information
technology company in Cheyenne, Wyoming run by a psycho-boss named Hank but
have kept in touch with each other over the years, occasionally getting
together to talk and argue economics and down a box or two of wine. Quite often
when I get into economics discussions with people I’m the liberal in the debate
but with Bob I’m usually the conservative.

I didn’t do much in the way of touring or sightseeing in
Durham but thought I’d create a short blog entry for a couple of the pictures I
took and a few of my impressions. We mostly hung out at La Mixteca Mexican
restaurant and ate half price appetizers and margaritas or brunch with
unlimited mimosas and sangria, but Bob did show me around campus a little too.
The town where UNH is located, Durham, seemed pleasant enough, but I didn’t
find it to be especially notable .

Unusual for the Northeast, New Hampshire is a very low tax
and low service state, one without a state income tax and without a state sales
tax on most goods and services (some luxuries and things they can largely gauge
out-of-staters for excepted). This leads to property taxes being the primary
source of government revenue and being quite high relative to other states, a
situation that makes New Hampshire a paradise for high income people willing to
live modestly but place where old folks on fixed incomes all have to rent out
rooms in their homes to afford their property taxes if they want to hold on to
them. Bob and Susan live in one of those rooms, a one-room with alcove basement
apartment in the home of an elderly lady they call “The Gopher”.

Very low state taxes lead to very low state funding for
higher education, and tuition at New Hampshire state colleges and universities
is near the highest in nation for both residents and non-residents . So you
might also expect facilities to be on the squalid side. Well, from the little
tour of campus Bob took me on, this couldn’t be farther from the case. UNH has
plush-looking new dorms, a beautiful modern library expansion, and lecture
halls he teaches in with upholstered wide-chairs, audio-visual equipment, and
lighting that would have seemed like something out of sci-fi to me when I was
in either college or graduate school in the 1980s and early 1990s. There’s no
question that being a college student is a far more upscale experience in 2015
than it was in 1985 or 1992.

I should note here that I am comparing facilities over time
rather than currently across schools and states. Maybe they’re even plusher in
higher tax states. I don’t know; I’ve visited a lot of college campuses in
recent years but mostly view things from the outside rather than inside the
buildings.

College tuition has risen across America at rates a multiple
of overall inflation over the last three decades . There are many contributing
factors to this phenomenon that have been discussed and documented. As with
healthcare, though, an industry I’ve studied more, I suspect a contributing factor
is a general upscaling of the experience as institutions like colleges and
hospitals that aren’t subject to normal market forces compete to attract
students or patients with superficial amenities that create an impression of
quality without adding real value to either education or patient care. The
little campus tour Bob took me on was quite eye-opening.