This article examines how the University of Kansas has changed in 20 years. Twenty years ago, annual operating expenses for the University of Kansas campus here were $204-million. Today the institution spends more than triple that, even though its enrollment, 26,000, is almost exactly the same. During the same period, tuition and fees for in-state students have increased fivefold. Throughout academe, college leaders often explain the rising cost of a college education as the inevitable result of an expanded menu of services that students and their parents expect, the higher costs of conducting and monitoring research, and the plusher academic and social amenities that professors and students now consider standard fare.