
Staff Jobs on Campus Outpace Enrollment - pg
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/21/education/21college.html?scp=1&sq=tamar%20lewin%20staff%20jobs&st=cse
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kgrin
As the study notes, a lot of the extra staff is there for good reasons, and
not just bureaucracy for its own sake (that's not to say there isn't plenty of
the latter, of course).

So, can some of the extra staff be trimmed without affecting the academic
experience? Absolutely. But in many cases it would affect the social
experience (if you cut res life/student activities people), the ability of
some students to attend (if you cut financial aid people), and so forth. Some
of these things scale pretty linearly with enrollment; some don't. Still
others scale linearly, but over 20 years colleges have just been _doing_ more
(e.g. college was cheaper, so you needed less of an infrastructure to help
students deal with loans).

The phrase "academic experience" is a bit of a misnomer, too - certainly
having a good IT help desk can contribute to the academic experience (let's
consider the non-HN population that can't build their own routers), but those
people aren't counted as "academic staff".

All that said, there are obviously useless positions, and like all large
organizations, colleges are susceptible to waste, mis- and over-management.
Pointing out the unsustainability of the current rate of growth is fair game;
but I'd be wary of a rush to purge non-academic staff as extraneous.

~~~
yummyfajitas
* But in many cases it would affect the social experience (if you cut res life/student activities people), the ability of some students to attend (if you cut financial aid people), and so forth.*

Probably the best way to handle this would be to make student life an optional
service. Basically you pay student fees or else you don't get to join the
Korean Social Club or visit the $NAME Center for Women.

I expect most students would choose the cheaper, bare-bones college experience
(if given the choice).

Most of these services exist for the benefit of employees, not for the
students.

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spkthed
I really don't understand it. A good education is a good thing, but it's
hardly necessary to succeed in today's workforce. There's also lots of
alternatives to getting a college education. As the cost to get an education
continues to increase and as the benefits from it continue to decrease there's
going to be a point where the tide starts flowing the other way.

It's also increasingly likely that small/smaller businesses will be the
companies of the future instead of the giant corporations we have now.

In spite of all of that, colleges continue to do business as usual. It's a
really strange dynamic. It appears to me that colleges have lost their goals
of teaching people necessary skills and have begun to exist simply for
themselves.

