Last month, Vice President Joe Biden visited Penn President Amy Gutmann. A plethora of black Escalades and men in suits with headpieces didn’t exactly help conceal the unannounced visit.

​While no one is sure what the two discussed at Gutmann’s residence off 38th and Walnut streets there are some clues as to what the topic of conversation may have been.

​Two days before Biden visited Gutmann, he gave a speech at a high school in Pennsylvania, in which he noted the cost of college was too high.

​Biden certainly knows Penn charges quite a bit to educate students: he’s sent one of his children to Penn as an undergrad and one as a graduate student. When the former graduated about two decades ago, tuition was well under $15,000, compared to over $37,000 today. Tuition increases have far outpaced inflation.

Biden attributed the high costs of college to many things, but he especially noted that college professors were getting paid too much.

​“[Salaries for college professors] should be good, but they have escalated significantly,” he said.

​Gutmann herself received a salary topping $1.3 million in 2009, and despite that, still fell in the ranking of highest-paid college presidents.

​Biden also noted that universities spend a lot of money on attributes that don’t help further a student’s education. He suggested colleges might spend too much money on stadiums and beautification of their respective campuses. Not to put words in his mouth, but that could be a critique of the recently opened Penn Park, which cost nearly $50 million.

​I doubt teachers’ salaries will shrink; Penn won’t stop adding cosmetic touches to our campus (have you noticed construction on Shoemaker Green, in front of the Palestra?). The problem is that among the top schools, or any two competing schools, there’s a red queen’s race. If Princeton University hires faculty who are renowned in their field of study, Penn will follow.

​But at the core of Biden’s message was that college should be affordable. In that respect, Penn has one of the best financial aid programs in the country. Then again, as costs continue to rise, more and more families will feel the pinch of paying for college.

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