
Universities are broke – let’s cut the pointless admin and get back to teaching - ryan_j_naughton
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/aug/21/universities-broke-cut-pointless-admin-teaching
======
meri_dian
I work in the administration for a top public US research University. The
increase in size of University administration and bureaucracy is due to a
number of factors. One is certainly unnecessary employment and over-
employment. Not only at high levels, with VP's, Assistant VP's, Assistant Vice
VP's, Chancellors, Vice Chancellor's, Executive VP's, Directors of XYZ, etc,
but also at low levels where the work done by 3 could realistically be done by
1.

However it's also important to recognize that not all of the runaway growth of
University bureaucracy is due to poor management or redundant workers;
expansion of IT infrastructure and increased regulatory requirements -
especially for public institutions - demand more labor. These are the obvious
culprits, but beyond these, because the modern University has become far more
than just a place of higher education and has come to resemble a miniature
city, it is expected to serve the diverse non-academic needs of tens of
thousands of students, in addition to more traditional academic needs.
Counseling and advisory services, recreational activities, food service,
engagement and diversity programs, ubiquitous computing, etc. all add to the
University's bottom line. Universities fear that if they were to stamp their
feet and refuse to supply these amenities in the name of keeping down tuition,
matriculation rates would decline as students would seek greener pastures
elsewhere.

Add to this the fact that Universities receive no penalty from the market for
continually increasing their prices. Because student loans are available to
service ever increasing tuition costs, and students pretty much need to go to
college to succeed in the 21st century, demand for college education is highly
inelastic. What economic entity wouldn't raise its prices if it knew demand
for its product wouldn't suffer?

In a traditional market, as one supplier increases price, competitors enter
the market offering lower prices. This doesn't happen in the market for higher
education because the value of a University is largely tied to its prestige,
and prestige cannot be easily generated by competitors. We bemoan the high
cost of University education then mock the University of Phoenix and similar
offerings. Market dynamics are the guilty party here.

~~~
fish_fan
> Universities fear that if they were to stamp their feet and refuse to supply
> these amenities in the name of keeping down tuition, matriculation rates
> would decline as students would seek greener pastures elsewhere.

I find this so fascinating. In a normal market, demand is driven by
differentiating factors, and I imagine paying for a reduced set of services
could be wildly popular. I certainly never took advantage of most of the
services I paid for in college—I was too busy with school.

Meanwhile, schools appear to be in the race for positioning schools as
anything _but_ a place to get a degree.... which is the entire role of college
in society today.

I would quit my job and finish my degree tomorrow if there was a "no bullshit,
we'll just get you your degree as fast as possible" option. But all I see are
residency requirements, tuition that appears to be at least an order of
magnitude more than what my professors cumulatively make from teaching me, etc
etc. Very disheartening to someone who loves the culture of academia.

And don't forget, they STILL make you buy textbooks and allow the profs to
pocket the profits.

~~~
cycomachead
Also, consider that the desire for greener pastures is a very top-down
cultural thing in the US, that's not always true world wide (though, it
increasingly seems that way.)

By number of students, most higher ed institutions are community colleges,
which are (for the most part) low on the BS and extra fun. For profits, and a
growing number of 'bootcamp' type schools also fit in this area.

However, 4 year schools (starting off with good ol' Harvard) completely
dominate the idea of what higher ed is like. Employers still revere 4 year
degrees and a "big name" still has its advantages. Many students grow up
thinking that's the only/right/best option for them - so between dozens of
essentially equivalently good schools (i.e. The "Top 50", and arguable the top
100-200 too), students pick on factors other than learning.

A few months ago, 538 wrote a fun piece called "Shut Up About Harvard", which
is worth a read. [https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/shut-up-about-
harvard/](https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/shut-up-about-harvard/)

~~~
arethuza
Here in the UK my wife has degrees from 4 universities - from middle ranking
to prestigious and by her accounts by far the worst teaching was at by far the
most prestigious (and we are talking about a world top 20 institution).

Having worked in academia this doesn't surprise me in the slightest.

NB I know these ranking schemes are pretty dubious.

~~~
phd514
I also have a degree from a prestigious university where the teaching ranged
from mediocre to good. IMO, the quality of the teaching (or lack thereof) was
secondary to the fact that the academic bar was set significantly higher than
at most other institutions and that I was surrounded by the caliber of
classmates who had both the aspiration and capability to excel.

~~~
Blackstone4
I have to agree. I went to a top 10 UK university which was very much focused
on research. The teaching was okay to poor but the level you had to meet to
pass the exams was high and I did project work with some of the brightest
people I've met who pushed me. I saw some of the work my peers were doing at
other universities and it was a walk in the park.

------
rfdub
I work in post secondary administration, so I think I have some perspective
here. Part of the problem, at least in the US & Canada (Where I live) is that
post secondary institutions are positioning themselves less and less and
places to get an education and more and more as places to go for an
"experience." Its no longer enough to provide a quality education,
universities now are selling themselves on their facilities, their "student
life" and all the other intangibles that are secondary to actual education.
This leads to all the administrative bloat we're seeing as now that many
schools are functioning more like glorified 4 years spas they have to have
departments filled with staff to plan events, throw parties, Snapchat sports
games, provide "save spaces," etc.

I haven't been in the sector long enough to have a real handle on when or why
this shift happened, but from my perspective its the primary driver of the
increasing administrative bloat. Schools are competing more on the
intangibles, and so they need to invest more into these areas, which means
more staff and more overhead.

Personally I think the whole university model isn't long for this world though
as there are plenty of ways competency can be signaled apart from a fancy
foil-stamped piece of paper and eventually when the costs of university
education don't provide a positive return over any reasonable time horizon
students are going to start looking for alternatives en masse and the market
will innovate to meet that demand.

~~~
wtvanhest
This is the view of people who have not really looked at university budgets.
"experiences" are cheap compared to headcount. Buildings and experiences are
mainly funded by outside donation specifically for the experience or building.
People do not often donate to "expand salaries and headcount for faculty and
administrators".

The result is that students pay for headcount and donors pay for experiences.
It isn't just administrative headcount, it is also teaching headcount. If you
want a low price, you cannot have a $200,000 a year professor teaching 30
students and doing some research unless the research is funding their salary.

We need to lower the cost of colleges in the United States dramatically and
that means tough choices, but it won't happen until we reach the point where
student loan defaults are so prevalent that the federal gov can no longer
subsidize them.

We have a crisis on our hands and our politicians are talking about lowering
the cost of borrowing by 2%, and making colleges "free". They are not
interested in driving down the real cost of an education.

~~~
zippergz
On the research point, why are research and teaching commingled? Both are
important, but it seems that they require very different skillsets. Would we
be better off filling universities primarily with people who love teaching,
and are great at it, and having some other kind of institution (or some
separate division of universities) do the research? Is this heresy?

~~~
wisty
IIRC there's a fairly strong correlation between content mastery and teaching
ability, even at the high school level, far more than the correlation between
level of teacher training and teaching ability.

Obviously there's other factors (effort, as you point out).

Though I think it's partly an artifact of the days when an undergrad degree
would bring students to the leading edge of research, so there was simply no-
one else qualified. There would have been a lot more synergy when researchers
were explaining cutting edge ideas to students (it still happens a bit, but
it's the exception rather than the rule).

~~~
SilasX
>Though I think it's partly an artifact of the days when an undergrad degree
would bring students to the leading edge of research, so there was simply no-
one else qualified. There would have been a lot more synergy when researchers
were explaining cutting edge ideas to students (it still happens a bit, but
it's the exception rather than the rule).

Yes, that was my suspicion too -- historically, students were only going to
those lectures where they were actually interested and which they were much
closer to the level of the lecturer. In that case, the bottleneck isn't
"ability to be a good explainer to novices" but "ability to answer arbitrary
questions".

IOW, it looked more like grad school today, where the good researchers
naturally are a better fit for teaching, and don't mind it as much.

------
mnm1
Yes. This is why I refuse to donate to my alma mater anymore. Tuition has
nearly tripled in in fourteen years while they are still teaching the same
number of students with roughly the same or fewer full time faculty. There's
something seriously wrong with that and this is a huge symptom of it. Until
they get their shit together, they need less money coming in, not more. This
is supposed to be a nonprofit institution but clearly many people are making
big money in this business at the expense of students. The federal loan
programs certainly don't help either. Allowing student loans to be discharged
in bankruptcy would also lessen this money feast for universities. Alas, no
solution looks in sight so I do my part in keeping money away from these money
furnaces.

~~~
extrapickles
When student loans were able to be discharged in bankruptcy, it was popular to
declare bankruptcy on graduation. By the time they saved up enough for a down
payment on a house, the bankruptcy will have fallen off the records, so
effectively they got a free education (not the ideal mechanism for doing so,
better to give people free education upfront).

Maybe there is a middle ground where student debt is not easily discharged,
but can be in some cases (eg: graduated 10-20yrs ago, could never find a
steady job).

Ideally we as a country should decide to make trade schools/college free (or
at least give people $10k/yr towards tuition). This would not be a huge
increase the in budget as we already spend ~$10k/yr (depends on state) to send
kids to high school.

~~~
praxulus
All student loans should be subject to income-based repayment. They can still
be very difficult/impossible to discharge in bankruptcy, but you shouldn't
have to make significant payments on them unless you're actually making decent
money.

~~~
tybit
This is how it works in Australia and it works very well IMO.

It also indexes with inflation so that there isn't a major stress if you
graduate with a low paying job and work your way up to a higher salary.

This does mean its everyone's lowest priority to pay off, but you can't
reasonably avoid paying it other than not making an income.

~~~
learc83
It works exactly like this in the US. People who aren't currently in college
just aren't aware of it.

------
Animats
Stanford is building a new "campus" in Redwood City. 35 acres. 2,700 people on
site. None are students. None are faculty. No teaching or research will occur
there. It's _all administrators_.[1] "School of Medicine administration;
Stanford Libraries and University Archives; the major administrative units of
Business Affairs; Land, Buildings and Real Estate; University Human Resources;
Residential & Dining Enterprises; and the Office of Development", says
Stanford's FAQ. ("Development" in university-speak means fund-raising, not
building construction.)

Now that's management bloat.

Stanford has only 2,180 faculty members.

[1] [https://redwoodcity.stanford.edu/](https://redwoodcity.stanford.edu/)

~~~
greglindahl
Yeah, who needs the Library and Archives? The book conservation lab is one of
the things in the RWC location, that's clearly overhead that's totally not
needed! Buckminster Fuller's models? Let 'em molder.

~~~
ams6110
Today, a library fits on a hard drive.

~~~
gh02t
Yes, but university libraries also do a whole lot more than just manage books.
The library at the University I work for has computer labs, GIS labs, a
makerspace, 3D printing, electronics fabrication, photography and video
studios, plus a hundred other things. All of those take staff.

~~~
DoofusOfDeath
FWIW, that's not what most people mean by the term "library".

~~~
gh02t
It is in the context of university libraries. Nowadays these sorts of services
are common at bigger schools, and they are managed by the library.

Libraries at universities have always offered more than just buildings full of
books. My point is that there is a lot more to managing a serious library than
just cataloging books. Trained librarians especially do a lot to directly
contribute to research by connecting researchers with the right sources of
information.

------
bluetwo
As an adjunct professor running one class per year, I ran the calculation of:

(Amount I'm paid per class / (students in class * cost per credit * credits
for class) )

And found I'm paid about 10% of what the students pay for the experience of
taking my class. I can't help wonder what happens to the rest of that money.

~~~
jimbokun
Now that's a business model screaming for disruption.

~~~
cousin_it
When people talk about "disruption of education", they usually mean either
online courses or boot camps. I think that's unfortunate. There are huge
benefits to learning stuff the traditional way, by taking a class in person,
on a schedule, with a curriculum and a teacher and an exam at the end. There
are also huge benefits to hanging out with working scientists and picking up
their enthusiasm. These are the important things about attending a university,
and they aren't even that difficult or expensive to set up! Can we get that
kind of "disruption", please?

~~~
gravypod
The only benefit I see is the piece of paper I'm going to get from the
university at the end of my wild ride.

------
slackstation
The pointless admin is from services given to the students. Universities (that
aren't household brand names like the Ivys) compete on services and
facilities. And because most students are young and using other people's money
(their parents or their future selves) they will choose schools not because
they have the best deal educationally but, because they beautiful grounds,
newer, swankier dorms and all of the social clubs and facilities for those
like sports fields, etc.

It's a market problem with misaligned incentives and payment structures that
has slowly grown worse over the past 40 years. No one actually says no because
competition favors those that fatten themselves up with attractive but
functionally useless things.

It's more like peacock feathers than malice or greed by administrators.

~~~
Applejinx
Yes. It's not unreasonable to cite this as an example of capitalism
functioning normally. Competition produces extra money for institutions that
are covering their core missions (one hopes) and also virtue signaling that
they're super successful and wealthy.

You could call it greed, or simple self-interest: if the administrators have
correctly perceived that the insanely wealthy will only make gifts to
institutions plated in gold with peacock feathers, then their personal
feelings about gold and peacock feathers are irrelevant: they can seduce the
wealthy, or not, and they can win the gifts, or not.

Definitely worth study, and definitely an interesting study in perverse
incentives. After a point, nothing is valued BUT gold and peacock feathers
because they're so inextricably a part of doing business. And it's certainly
not aimed at the students. It's aimed at the impossibly wealthy, who wish
their gifts to be associated with institutions that are absurdly swanky for
the students. What the students want doesn't have anything to do with it, it's
purely for donors.

------
4bpp
People are happy to claim they want to downsize university administrations
when the appeal is voiced like this, but another kind of editorial that pops
up just as frequently in the opinion press later, they will be just as
enthusiastically demanding more counseling for students in emotional
quandaries, more university-mediated internship opportunities, more officials
providing sexual assault prevention training, more recourse to resolve
student-advisor disputes in a way that shifts the power balance towards the
student, more varied dining options and a plethora of other goodies that can
mostly only be realised with more and/or more powerful admin staff.

------
dmix
Obligatory:

> Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy states that in any bureaucratic
> organization there will be two kinds of people:

> First, there will be those who are devoted to the goals of the organization.
> Examples are dedicated classroom teachers in an educational bureaucracy,
> many of the engineers and launch technicians and scientists at NASA, even
> some agricultural scientists and advisors in the former Soviet Union
> collective farming administration.

> Secondly, there will be those dedicated to the organization itself. Examples
> are many of the administrators in the education system, many professors of
> education, many teachers union officials, much of the NASA headquarters
> staff, etc.

> The Iron Law states that in every case the second group will gain and keep
> control of the organization. It will write the rules, and control promotions
> within the organization.

[https://www.jerrypournelle.com/ironlaw.htm](https://www.jerrypournelle.com/ironlaw.htm)

~~~
analog31
All I remember of Jerry Pournelle was his monthly piece in Byte Magazine,
describing his adventures with a computer that never seemed to completely
work.

~~~
evanb
Some of my favorite SF is stuff he wrote with Larry Niven: Footfall, Inferno,
Lucifer's Hammer, The Mote in God's Eye (and The Gripping Hand)

------
cperciva
About five years ago, the president of my university proudly announced at a
Senate meeting that they had appointed a new Director of Sustainability, to
help ensure that the university's operations were sustainable.

I asked if, in light of the increasing administration headcount, they thought
appointing a Director of Sustainability was financially sustainable.

They clearly didn't get the message; while that particular Director has moved
on to other things, there is now an Office of Sustainability with about a
dozen people.

------
dmix
In an administrative heavy organization every problem seems to be answered
with "how can we add more administrative layers, processes, and backroom deals
to satisfy x group (management, media, special interest groups, voters, etc)
that something appears to be being done?" rather than asking "looking at all
available options what is the best way to resolve this problem (inside and out
of government)?". Basically a "When all you have is a hammer everything looks
like a nail" type of thing.

This is the difference between group A (admins) and group B (engineers,
teachers, etc) in Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy [1]. The former is often
presented as a clever talented group of smart people who savvily work the
system in TV shows like House of Cards but I question the utility it really
offers the world when the ROI is so often questionable.

I'm curious how much of this modern dysfunction in modern governments (not
just in the US) is due to the fact politicians are now almost entirely career
politicians who spend their formative years in this insular world. The
majority coming from the same private schools and 90% of them with law
degrees. Rather than in the past, such as the founding fathers, who were
businessmen, writers, and intellectuals first embedded in the real world who
then went into public service.

The same analogy applies to Universities with administrators being raised
within the system rather than the teaching staff intimately familiar with the
front-line realities of the organization.

[1]
[https://www.jerrypournelle.com/ironlaw.htm](https://www.jerrypournelle.com/ironlaw.htm)

~~~
corpMaverick
This is what happens to software development within large corporations.
Developers are being managed by a bureaucracy that doesn't have a clue about
software development.

------
reaperducer
Whether it's a university or a government or any other bureaucracy, the money
eventually flows to the top. And the top tier of employees have no incentive
to remove their own livelihoods.

Thinning the waste at the top is a great idea, but never gets done unless a
bigger bureaucracy makes it happen.

~~~
Overtonwindow
MY favorite are the exorbitant salaries paid to sports faculty, even when the
sports program is loses money.

~~~
ams6110
The universities that have highly paid coaches are the ones with premier,
highly successful programs and earn way more from ticket sales, broadcast
revenues, and merchandise than the coach is paid. It's like any other business
(and it most definitely _is_ a business), you need to pay well to attract the
best talent.

~~~
lutorm
If this article ([https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2016/03/the-
ma...](https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2016/03/the-madness-of-
college-basketball-coaches-salaries/475146/)) is any guide, the money made by
the athletic department mostly goes to the athletic department and not to
funding anything else useful.

~~~
ams6110
I would agree, but dispute the claim that athletic scholarships are not
"useful." Most collegiate athletes do not progress to professional careers in
their sport. Their education (at least in theory) prepares them to be
contributors to society after they graduate.

Athletics is an "auxilliary enterprise" at most educational institutions. It's
self-funding, thanks to alumni donations and a few high-revenue sports
(basketball and football for most, maybe hockey in some areas) that fund
scholarships in all the non-revenue sports like rowing, golf, track and field,
etc.

People like to gripe when the football coach makes more than the university
president, but the football program funds that, scholarships for the players,
and much more.

~~~
tommorris
> Their education (at least in theory) prepares them to be contributors to
> society after they graduate.

That assumption seems to be in doubt.

[https://www.sbnation.com/college-
football/2014/7/9/5885433/n...](https://www.sbnation.com/college-
football/2014/7/9/5885433/ncaa-trial-student-athletes-education)

[http://www.stanforddaily.com/2011/03/09/1046687/](http://www.stanforddaily.com/2011/03/09/1046687/)

[https://sports.vice.com/en_us/article/vvan54/how-much-is-
a-d...](https://sports.vice.com/en_us/article/vvan54/how-much-is-a-degree-
worth-to-college-athletes-not-much)

[http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/13/sports/13cnd-
auburn.html?m...](http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/13/sports/13cnd-
auburn.html?mcubz=3)

[http://www.npr.org/2012/11/17/165345780/online-courses-
keep-...](http://www.npr.org/2012/11/17/165345780/online-courses-keep-grades-
up-athletes-in-play)

------
leggomylibro
Kind of unrelated, but I am extremely disappointed in how much 'giving back to
local communities' has been abandoned by modern universities, in favor of
their massive administrative payrolls.

What used to be a core tenant of thought, is now a dollar figure. If you live
in the state, you get a discount. End of story, obligations fulfilled, full
stop.

But it's not a commitment or a central belief. No university will open its
facilities to community members. No stage will be available for public
performances, no instruments or machines will be made available for inquiring
minds, no local organizations will spend more than a few hours on campus for a
field trip.

Providing those things would cost money, sure enough. But they used to be part
of a university's mission. Some of the older ones still enshrine the ideal in
their mottos. That should mean something. It doesn't.

~~~
sackofmugs
Do you have evidence of this? I'm just curious because I see all sorts of
university events open to the public. Both in public and private universities.
There's musical performances, special events (like physics students hosting
solar eclipse day and providing hundreds of glasses to the public), theater
performances, sporting events (for a low cost), donations to local charities
and events, etc.

~~~
leggomylibro
Just anecdotal evidence - I guess I see what you're describing as part of the
student experience. Other people are allowed in, which is nice, but those
things are done for the students' benefit.

I mean that no university I've dealt with in any capacity, (which, okay, is
only about a half-dozen,) has shown even the slightest interest in educating
their local communities. That 'commitment' begins and ends with a discount
given to a handful of people.

------
scythe
How?

I've been hearing variations of "universities have too much administration"
for at least a decade. I still haven't heard any solutions that aren't
ridiculously expensive or already being implemented (and failing). Except, of
course, for the solutions like "make it impossible for most of the people who
currently attend college to go to college" which are approximately as
politically viable as making French fries illegal and which furthermore do not
really seem to have any mechanism to fix _administrative_ costs other than
"market voodoo".

One thing that tends to come up repeatedly when these discussions do reach a
modicum of depth is the persistent gaming of the university rankings system.
Universities game the ranking system by e.g. encouraging students to apply who
are not likely to get in so that they will appear to be more exclusive. It
would be nice to improve university rankings so they can't be so easily gamed,
but will this actually make a significant difference? I'm not convinced yet
that rankings actually have that large of an influence on university policy,
in the first place.

The need for universities to police student behavior is another unfortunate
situation. It's my understanding that federal cost-cutting is basically behind
the moves on the government's part to implement policy by way of schools'
enforcement of student misconduct. An honest politician should be able to fix
this by allocating money for the government to do what it should have been
doing in the first place, but increasing spending is very hard these days...

------
forsakenkraken
As one of the 'pointless' admin staff at a British Russell group university,
the article seems to be overly hammering home the authors point which has to
be partly to do with the book 'Bullshit Business' that he's trying to sell. I
don't deny that there are issues in the university system here in the 'United'
Kingdom, but I feel he's overhyping issues to get clicks and sell his book.

As several previous commenters have noted, we have a some what dysfunctional
market, where most universities charge the same fees. For students you're
still picking based on courses and reputation. You can't really pick a cheaper
'no-frills' university. This marketisation has leeched into the central
university services, where we're turning everything into a product to sell.
Not much of a market when academics have to use us. We are very cheap, it's
not like we've got to make money. Obviously if you got rid of that, you'd be
able to remove some staff. You'd still need quite a few to meet the
legislative demands which are required of universities these days.

There are definitely some truths in the article. Not everyone needs to go to
university. Certainly there are some students who are getting massive amounts
of debt for very little gain. Universities do chase various league tables and
other such measures (some imposed centrally) which does require lots of data
gathering. Large amounts of data require staff to deal with that data.
Students do really like shiny new buildings, so universities go on building
sprees. Again a poor NSS (national student survey) can potentially reduce
students and thus income. But to be fair, you'd want things to be nice when
you're paying £9k per year for your fees alone.

REF and TEF aren't well liked by academics, so I'm quite sure a lot of them
would be happy if they were dropped. It's unsurprising that the article is
penned by an academic and one of his main suggestions is the dropping of REF.

The USS pension scheme deficit is probably misleading. If you want some
detailed reading around that, then Mike Otsuka's articles are good -
[https://medium.com/@mikeotsuka](https://medium.com/@mikeotsuka)

------
santaclaus
Is this true in the US, in general? My alma mater has a circa 9 billion dollar
endowment... yet it still sends me sob story letters soliciting donations.

~~~
tapatio
Mine too. They should be issuing us dividend checks, not asking for donations!

------
norswap
It seems increasingly likely to me that the whole academic model is on the
verge of existential crisis, and headed towards profound transformations. I'm
curious to see where this leads. Hopefully someplace better than before. (I
shoul mention I'm a PhD student)

------
pragmar
Probably the best deep dive I've read on the cost of higher ed was published a
few years ago by Robert Hiltonsmith. This addresses US universities and
colleges as opposed to UK, so the issues may not be one to one and the data is
a little dated (published in 2015). Still, a worthwhile read.

[http://www.demos.org/publication/pulling-higher-ed-ladder-
my...](http://www.demos.org/publication/pulling-higher-ed-ladder-myth-and-
reality-crisis-college-affordability)

------
perseus323
I worked at my university after graduation for 2 months (as an employee; well
funded project). A project that should have had no more than 4 developers had
3x that many. Tool 2.5x as long to finish (I left in the middle). Crippling,
dysfunctional politics, lunch meetings with stake holders, useless field
trips. I think everyone involved knew what was going on and didn't care.

------
PeachPlum
My University, Huddersfield, isn't broke and is debt free to boot.

> In addition to the Creative Arts Building which opened in 2008, a new £17
> million Business School opened in 2010, followed by the £3 million Buckley
> Innovation Centre in 2012, the £22.5 million Student Central building in
> 2014, and the £27.5 million Oastler Building for Law and the School of
> Music, Humanities and Media, in 2017. £5.5 million invested in University
> Campus Barnsley.

> The University now attracts students from more than 130 countries. With an
> annual turnover of approximately £150m each year, it estimates it is worth
> £300m annually to the local economy.

And yet there is rabble rousing concerning the Vice Chancellor's £337,000
salary

[http://www.examiner.co.uk/news/west-yorkshire-
news/universit...](http://www.examiner.co.uk/news/west-yorkshire-
news/university-huddersfield-vice-chancellor-sees-10775384)

------
forkLding
I have actually had an idea related to the sort of debt had to be taken by
American university students for their academics.

Why not use a mixture of blended learning and Coursera, where students pay not
just professors but also industry folk for cutting-edge knowledge but also
open up a marketplace for Youtube tutorial people to do physical workshops in
their cities that can be charged and move onto a sort of Airbnb for education
and workshops? I feel a lot of straight-up learning can be gained and the 3%
charged per workshop will go towards scholarships. For people who think you
would be paying high prices per lecture/workshop in this model, a university
student has already been paying about $50 or more per lecture.

Instead of basically physical/manual admin systems in individual centralized
universities, you have decentralized software system managing schedules and
booking workshops/lectures.

Just an opinion and thought I've been having, any feedback welcome.

~~~
gmarx
You assume the primary purpose of college/university is to teach. No. In
America anyway, it is mostly a credential. The prestige and exclusiveness of
your uni serves as a marker of intelligence in a society in which it can be
legally treacherous to give potential employees IQ tests.

I will agree that for a significant minority of students the learning and
learning to teach oneself are important. I doubt the top universities do a
better job of this. From that perspective I think the main advantage of the
sorting is that it is easier to teach if your students fall into a narrow band
of ability

~~~
asdfjklasdfjkl
It's difficult to design an education system without the following property,
but nonetheless I find it an unfortunate one:

You do better at university when you already know the material, not when you
use the university to learn the material. Your well-being (tied directly to
gpa) depends on you not making mistakes during your coursework.

I don't know about you, but mistakes are how I learn.

~~~
bllguo
very interesting point. For me the best way to learn was to do problem sets
and be able to immediately check and fix my answers - to have the freedom to
make mistakes and learn from them in a low stakes environment.

I had a few classes where the professor provided both a list of recommended
problems in the text, as well as an answer key. The grading was solely off of
tests. Circumvents the cheating problem and tries to avoid punishing you for
making mistakes while learning.

~~~
gmarx
HackerNews is selection bias central. I suspect the overwhelming majority of
college students don't even know the term "problem set" :) Most of it is, read
this book of literature and write something showing you both read it and have
absorbed the latest fads in college politics and art criticism.

------
rahimnathwani
This article is purportedly about UK universities, but half of the evidence
quoted is from studies of _US_ universities. So no matter how strong the
evidence, it's irrelevant.

The second half of the article is prescriptive but short on details. What does
it mean to require "people to fully carry out their own fanciful ideas"? Does
it mean that someone who decides the trash should be collected every other day
rather than every day, should actually collect the trash?

Like many people, I'm attracted by headlines which align with my own biases.
But my level of bias here is unchanged after reading the article!

------
tonyedgecombe
The problem in the UK is there is no significant competitive pressure. What
would help is separating the teaching from grading, just as it is in schools.

Right now an employer has to consider a degree from Oxford Brookes in a
completely different light to one from Oxford University. If they knew the
students were graded in exactly the same way then it could really shake the
system up.

~~~
IanCal
I'm not a fan of that, it's adds huge drag to any change. Want to add a module
on deep learning that you also want to test? Now it needs to be added by a
country-wide exam board. Want to add something on cognitive neuroscience to
the standard "AI" degree? Only if everyone can teach it.

Given how regularly things are messed up by the boards on simple GSCE level
questions covering far fewer subjects, I'd not like to have that applied
across everyone.

~~~
tonyedgecombe
I'd be interested to know how much variation there really is, when visiting
universities with my children the options looked remarkably similar.

There might be some drag on creating new courses but there could be huge
savings as well.

One thing I'm sure is the academic community wouldn't like it, it would need
to be forced on them.

------
Fej
The university I go to is now run more like a business, with top-down
leadership. Questioning the higher-ups is apparently grounds for firing.

The disgust with the administration has gotten to the point that few recent
graduates plan to donate, ever. Tuition is so high that it feels like they
already got all the money they deserve.

------
mrslave
In addition to this article, from the vlog "Plunging Enrollment at Mizzou"
<[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h7CHd-w02lc>](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h7CHd-w02lc>):

    
    
      They can't pay all of the administrators that they need.

_need_

Also consider that the bennies at de facto government jobs are also higher
than market rates (e.g. contribution to retirement schemes, insane types of
paid leave) and it's funded with your taxes or government debt (future taxes).

The FA also addresses the politicization of college education which wasn't my
point but interesting nonetheless.

------
c517402
Administrative bloat isn't just a problem at the University level, but across
all levels of education in the US.

~~~
igravious
The article is about British universities.

------
randyrand
The admin is not useless. It's tasked with gobbling up as much cash for the
endowment as possible.

------
tqi
"For instance, before introducing a new procedure they would need to eliminate
an old one."

If someone wrote a tech article suggesting that companies should require
removal of a line of code for every new line introduced, do you think that
article would make it to front page of HN?

~~~
savanaly
For the analogy you're drawing to really hold, we have to picture a computer
where the bytes get a lot of work done on their own and our code merely exists
to slow down and redirect their efforts (in other words, a negative and a
possible positive). If you were concerned with the fast, efficient operation
of the computer then you might indeed want a rule like "one in, one out" for
lines of code.

~~~
RugnirViking
When space was limited in game cartridges in the past I can imagine such a
rule actually existing in a real buisness setting.

One line of code in, one line of code out. That would lead to some really
weird software, and it would take longer, but it would probably improve the
software in some metrics like performance

------
auggierose
> In some courses, like business administration, students’ capacity to think
> got worse for the first few years.

That's what I suspected for quite some time now :D

------
taksintikk
Maybe they can start by getting getting rid of the NCAA (private corporation)
siphoning billions from colleges and universities.

~~~
tonyedgecombe
The article is about British universities.

------
ana_1337
What part of this is due to over-regulation and grant requirements? Seems
huge.

------
exabrial
I agree. We could start by dropping Politcal Correctness, safe spaces, etc and
embrace Free speech, with the assumption that truth will always win in the
long term (ex: heliocentrism). This means the painful process of letting the
opposition speak, which is lost on the current generation.

------
lspears
Just use Udacity or Coursera

------
muninn_
We can't cut the pointless admin for public schools because we need to comply
with government regulations. Not making a judgement call here, but it's there.

~~~
dbcurtis
Not sure why you are getting downvoted, perhaps the word "pointless". But
certainly there are administrators on the public school payroll who's job is
ensuring regulatory compliance and collecting/filing the evidence of
compliance, and that function did not exist years ago.

Now, whether or not that is "pointless" is a debatable. The laws were passed
in the first place to cure some perceived ill. It's fair to have an ROI
discussion around that.

~~~
grzm
If it _is_ the word "pointless", I bet your parent used it as that's the
phrase that's used in the submission title.

------
Overtonwindow
Extremely unpopular opinion: Let's cut both the extra admin, and excess
tenured professors. In fact, the entire tenure system should be completely
upended. At my alma mater there were a lot of professors who didn't have
enough students sign up for their classes, or their field of study was phased
out, or reduced. Instead they sat around doing "research" and when they were
forced to teach, quite a few openly expressed disdain for teaching.

~~~
chriskanan
As a tenure-track professor, obviously I'm biased, but tenure doesn't mean you
don't have to work. Professors still have to pull their weight around the
university and department. If nobody takes their classes or they aren't
bringing in research dollars, that would be a problem that would be brought up
in their performance appraisals.

The vast majority of tenured professors make about 1/2 to 1/4 of what their
value is in industry, and at research institutions most work 60+ hours per
week. On average, I work far harder now than I did as a PhD student or when I
was in industry.

An interesting alternative tenure are renewable five year contracts, which are
used at some teaching universities and some prestigious research institutes.
About a year before the contract expires, a professor at these places has to
document their successes and convince the institute to renew their contract.
The idea is that a professor basically would be "going up for tenure" every
five years (but not receiving it, just getting their contract renewed for 5
more years). If they start getting lazy, their contracts don't need to be
renewed. Going up for tenure requires putting together about 100-200 pages of
documentation describing your research, pedagogy, service, etc.

~~~
oh_sigh
What impacts can performance appraisals have on a tenured professor? Is it
possible to be fired or have your salary severely cut simply from poor
performance?

~~~
ams6110
Almost never. You'll get fired if you sexually harass a student, but not for
performance in the classroom.

------
downrightmike
Wall of text warning.

~~~
dcre
It's this crazy thing called an "article."

