The Size of The Box

Santa Clara’s School of Law steadily raised tuition year after year, from roughly $44,000 in 2015 to $63,280 in 2025. Yet it just announced its 2026–27 tuition: $50,000. Why the sudden drop, and why such a round number?

That's because, ​starting next year, professional school borrowing ​​in the US​​ will be capped at $50,000 per year.

Education costs, it turns out, expand to fill the size of the box we assume to be the default.

Change the box, and the “necessary” cost instantly adjusts.

This isn’t only about tuition. The length of studies also grew to fit expectations. With a bit of exaggeration: finishing middle school for my grandparents was roughly equivalent to finishing high school for my parents, finishing university for me, and, if we continue the trend, finishing a PhD for my children. Simple degrees that once took one or two years stretched until they matched the duration of other, more complex degrees. The box grew, and everything expanded with it. As a result, we all end up poorer (we begin adult life later and with more debt, and start families even later).

The broader issue

I see the same dynamic in business. Tasks stretch to the amount of time the manager implicitly allows. Projects and bureaucracy inflate to match the scope and complexity of unrelated projects. Meetings default to the duration that colleagues have normalized, even when the topic does not require it.

We rarely ask whether the box we’re using is larger than the work actually needs.

But ensuring the box is never larger than necessary can produce dramatic savings in time, effort, and complexity. It’s a question worth asking ritualistically.

(As I sometimes joke, a significant part of the value of AI will be in ritualistically invoking simple questions such as "could this be simpler" or "can it be done faster," which people are terrible at keeping on their mind at all times.)