(Guest Post by Matthew Ladner)
Herodotus called Egypt “the gift of the Nile” and Arizona is the gift of the Colorado (and a canal). Both Egypt and Arizona have alas been afflicted by an edifice complex- giant mountain sized stone tombs in the case of Egypt, very pricey new construction for districts in the case of Arizona, as I detail in a Chamber Business News column. Any chance $330 per square foot schools will attract tourists thousands of years from now? Warning: reading this piece will expose you to earworm Egyptian themed songs.
Jay P. Greene's Blog 
Cost per classroom of classroom building construction makes this point clear. Two decades ago, the Hawaii DOE spent about $240,000 per classroom for classroom buildings. These are 20’x30’x10′ concrete boxes in rows of fix or eight, two or three tiers high: cookie-cutter projects. This cost does not include land acquisition.