Tuition increases in universities, while worry elsewhere is about deflation?

Hmmm ... something does not make sense ...
The Oregon University System approved the new tuition rate structures for the institutions that it oversees:

Including all credit hours, the campuses’ averages for tuition increases overall are 6.2%, with individual campus overall increases at the following: Eastern Oregon University = 2.6%; Oregon Institute of Technology = 6.2%; Oregon State University = 6.0%; OSU-Cascades Campus (Bend) = 6.2%; Portland State University = 6.0%; Southern Oregon University = 5.2%; University of Oregon = 6.0%; and Western Oregon University = 5.2% for non-Promise program students, and 8.8% for new cohort Promise students (students who have a guaranteed, stable tuition rate for 4 years while at WOU). More detail of nonresident and graduate program tuition and fees and room and board rates are available at: http://www.ous.edu/state_board/meeting/dockets/ddoc100604-FB.pdf .

And the inflation rate? Nation-wide, according to the May press release from the BLS:

Over the last 12 months, the index increased 2.2 percent before seasonal adjustment.

And, get this, the US and the world is increasingly worried not about price increases, but about deflation.  Because, deflation is not easy to deal with--just ask the Japanese ...

Anyway, even the least increase at EOU is greater than the national inflation rate.  But, EOU is an outlier in the data, which is otherwise in the 5 and 6 percent categories.  Really?  The cost of providing higher education has gone up that much more compared to everything else?
Well, I understand that the increase in tuition is mostly to offset the decrease in state allocation, and not entirely because the total cost of providing the service has gone up.  But,
a. I wish the universities would make clear what that total cost is, and how much is being supported by taxpayers, and
b. More so because that total is not made clear, students and their families will know only how much they have to pay, which then will make it seem like tuition increases far outpace inflation.

(Note: the chart on the left is about overall national data)

More intriguing?  That attending WOU is more expensive than going to OSU or PSU, which are two of the research universities in the system: WOU is far more expensive than the other two teaching universities--EOU and SOU.  Wouldn't the normal taxpayer expectation be that a teaching university would be less expensive than a research university?

Oh boy! More data then to confirm my worries that cost control in higher education is not unlike cost issues in the other often talked about topic--health care.