While there are a lot of tests to get into college, there are no exit exams to get out. Despite the soaring price of tuition and the benefits a degree offers, researchers have found that undergrads often spend little time studying compared to other activities like working, socializing or partying. As a result, many show limited gains in critical thinking — the hallmark of American higher education.

Students at one New York university have a surprise awaiting them: an $8,000-a-year “academic excellence fee.” We have to ask: Isn’t academic excellence included in tuition? In fact, tuition is only part of the cost of college. Like car dealerships, schools are nickel-and-diming consumers with huge fees — fees for student activities, fees for athletics, fees for building maintenance, fees for libraries, even fees for graduation, the bills for which arrive just as students and their families thought they were finally done paying for college.

Student loans aren’t the only kind of university debt. Colleges and universities have borrowed billions, mostly to build new dorms, dining halls and facilities, spaces they may – or may not – need as student enrollment declines nationally. Today, nearly 10 cents of every dollar in university budgets helps pay interest on institutional debt.