Former University President Stephen Joel Trachtenberg was spotlighted Friday by The National Journal as the instigator of a “tuition arms race” in higher education.

Trachtenberg, whose 19-year tenure transformed GW from a commuter school to a selective research university, also oversaw the University’s rise as the country’s most expensive school after a decade of campus expansions.

That strategy to cover GW with the gloss of “cafés, beautiful study spaces, and nicer dorms” before it improved academically drew a stinging comparison to the nationwide concern about student loan debt and tuition increases.

“The way Trachtenberg saw it, selling George Washington over the other schools was like selling one brand of vodka over another. Vodka, he points out, is a colorless, odorless liquid that varies little by maker,” National Journal staff reporter Julia Edwards wrote.

“He realized the same was true among national private universities: It was as simple as raising the price and upgrading the packaging to create the illusion of quality,” she wrote.

Now, undergraduate borrowers nationwide owe $28,100 on average,  a quarter more than they did a decade ago.

Since Trachtenberg stepped down in 2007, GW has stepped back in the tuition arms race.

Annual tuition increases for incoming students and capital investments like the $275 million Science and Engineering Hall continue, but GW no longer counts as one of the top 20 most expensive schools in the country.

The University instead has taken on more than $1 billion in debt and pinpointed cost-cutting or revenue-boosting strategies through the Innovation Task Force like online programs or satellite campus expansion.

But Trachtenberg, who came to GW in 1988, told The National Journal he wished he could have spent more.

“I would have been bolder,” Trachtenberg said. “I devoted too much time and energy worrying about a rainy day.”