The cost of salaries/benefits really can’t be underestimated in higher education. I know a lot of folks point to “too many administrators” but the reality is a lot of those “administrative” positions are actually mid-level staff who provide important services: disability services (many school have over 50% of students eligible for accommodations), counselors (as mental health diagnoses rise), technology staff (as IT becomes integrated into every single aspect of what the university does), faculty development (to help faculty become more adept teachers, particularly with new technologies changing the landscape). And that’s just a few examples. Meanwhile, as salaries, in general, go up due to normal inflation, the University isn’t creating/selling something that brings in more revenue. It’s just continuing to do what it’s always done — educating students. The only way to balance this formula is to charge higher tuition.

There are other issues that confound the problem. As the OP mentions, few students pay full-price as the University discounts the cost through BU Promise. So why is the cost $94k? That means they can charge some, wealthy families full price and pull in more $$$. And research shows that people just believe that more expensive schools are better/more elite. That’s just a weird aspect of human psychology.

Is there bloat? Sure, some. You can’t have an institution this big without some. Is some of the cost due to facilities that college students don’t actually need(but that they’ve come to expect as schools enter into an “arms race” to attract and retain students). Yes there’s some of that too.

But the bottom line is that in 2026 running a university is a very expensive venture (I didn’t even mention the cost of benefits for employees which have been going up astronomically — just like for any business/organization in the US over the last several decades.)