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Tuesday, February 18. 2014

College Cost and Administrative Bloat


More on this topic: University Administrative Glut Worse Than We Thought:



 Over the last 25 years the number of administrative employees at U.S. colleges and universities more than doubled, according to a joint study by the New England Center of Investigative Reporting and the American Institutes for Research. The ratio of nonacademic positions to faculty positions doubled at both public and private institutions. Overall, the industry has added an average of 87 administrative positions per day, a rate has scarcely slowed since the economic downturn, despite tuition increases. Even more surprising, academic institutions have added more administrative employees despite part-time faculty taking on more teaching duties than full-time professors.



Why? Who are these people and what do they do all day?

Posted by The Barrister in Education, Our Essays at 15:58 | Comments (8) | Trackback (1)

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Faculty empire building is slow and complex but administrative empires are quick to build. Also colleges like hospitals pay no tax but are expected to be local jobs projects. One need only look at billy bulger's tenure at UMASS as a case study.
#1 Dirtyjobsguy on 2014-02-18 16:12 (Reply)
I was just thinking about the two new deans at my college and how they are throwing their weight around to justify their (hefty) paychecks. Sigh.

We have a perfectly functioning division and I get along famously (as do we all) with my division chair. She and I don't agree on much politically, but that doesn't matter. She does all she can to keep the educrats from imposing senseless and costly mandates on us in the trenches.

Now she is losing some of her power to the new deans who are intent on changing class schedules and rearranging priorities.

God help us.
#2 Dangerous Dean on 2014-02-18 16:21 (Reply)
Those people work for the government. Sure, they get a university paycheck, but their purpose is to keep the government in reports and other assorted paperwork.

Not to mention, universities are non-profits. In a non-profit, funds in excess of expenses, that would go to owners/investors in a for-profit entity, are divided among the senior admin people. There is, however, a limit that can be taken as pay and benefits, so they route some into more crony staff to do the "work".
#3 JKB on 2014-02-18 17:35 (Reply)
In 2013, I drafted 108 speeches for the president of our university, emails from the president that went to 72,000+ recipients each week, wrote a monthly web-based newsletter, wrote 21 scripts for videos, wrote 328 distinct pieces of correspondence, maintained the president's Facebook fan page, maintained the Office of the President's four pages on our university's website, wrote eight op-eds and four white papers, plus "other duties as assigned." I have a master's and doctorate in higher ed administration and take home about 4K a month.
#4 Amy K on 2014-02-18 22:58 (Reply)
Amy, it always takes one drone to do all the work. You're clearly the designated "sucker"!

How about your collegues; those 12-20 Assistant Vice Provosts or Vice Chancellors for Diversity, or Planning, or Administration, who all sit around drafting re-org plans that conflict with each other and are eventually thrown away or teach worthless seminars to other faculty and staff?

I bet they all get paid the same as or more than you do, for far less useful work.
#4.1 Earl T on 2014-02-19 13:20 (Reply)
Dear Amy: You should be grateful. From 1987 to 1999 my husband built a department which became world famous. He was working in a school that did not offer tenure. The promise was increase the volume and your salary will be increased--that never happened. Instead he was required to help the chancellors hand picked handmaiden through her ph.d ( a fraudulent degree from a beachfront school). He was also required to write speeches for the chancellor which made it look as if the chancellor knew my husband's field of study
. When the programs hit the top 10 in the US News the chancellor tried to put his wife in my husband's chair. Finally the chancellor forced his pick of a new hire president upon the school. She called a community meeting and announced my husband's resignation without discussing it with him first. This was after 12 years of work--never a day off. DH even went so far as to postpone his vacations believing that when he retired he would have a back up of time to be used. That was taken away with no explanation. When we refused to stay on because they had broken his yearly renewable contract we were told that YOU HAVE TO STAY ON AND MAKE HER AND THE CHANCELLOR AND THE CHANCELLOR's WIFE LOOK GOOD! When we refused they destroyed my husbands career. They have been stalking us, breaking into our home, and blacklisting my husband ever since March 1999.
#5 facultywife on 2014-02-19 00:37 (Reply)
I have no idea. But, I'm willing to take a look.
#5.1 W. C. Taqiyya on 2014-02-20 23:55 (Reply)
All great comments. Facultywife, I can't even come up with the words for that kind of injustice and calumny against your husband.

Perhaps Hillsdale can serve as a control group in the hypothesis that increased governmental involvement in higher ed has caused the growth of administrators? I'd like to see the per capita (studenta?) numbers.
#6 gpc31 on 2014-02-19 19:26 (Reply)

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