

Administrators Ate My Tuition - cpaone
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/septemberoctober_2011/features/administrators_ate_my_tuition031641.php?page=all

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jpadvo
Beware -- this article makes a variety of claims that are not well supported.
They are not even anecdotal, they're just out of thin air. Just one example
from the first part:

"Alas, today’s full-time professional administrators tend to view management
as an end in and of itself. Most have no faculty experience, and even those
who have spent time in a classroom or laboratory often hope to make
administration their life’s work and have no plan to return to teaching."

Um, any data _at all_ to back this up? In my experience at a public
university, this is not at all true. And when administrators make a career out
it, it is often in roles like working on technological infrastructure of a
campus.

Also, many universities are growing their research programs. From what I've
seen, it takes a lot more staff to support the research side of things than to
support the educational side of things. And research is paid for (in theory)
from grants and such, not tuition.

Anyway, there are a variety of problems with the way higher education is run
and funded, but this article doesn't cover them. Instead, it uses a few
statistics and a lot of bold, inaccurate, unsubstantiated, sensationalistic
hand waving about that darn old wasteful ivory tower.

"There are lies, darn lies, and statistics" applies quite well in this case.

~~~
_delirium
> And research is paid for (in theory) from grants and such, not tuition.

The former dean of Georgia Tech's College of Computing has a series of posts
arguing that many (most?) universities actually lose money on research,
contrary to the grants argument:

[http://innovate-wwc.com/2010/07/05/why-universities-do-
resea...](http://innovate-wwc.com/2010/07/05/why-universities-do-research/)

[http://innovate-wwc.com/2011/05/18/if-you-have-to-ask-ten-
su...](http://innovate-wwc.com/2011/05/18/if-you-have-to-ask-ten-sure-fire-
ways-to-lose-money-on-research/)

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rkischuk
It's true that it's not just the administrators. It's the budgets and programs
that come with them.

I went to Georgia Tech. The last time I heard a report, Georgia Tech had 3
staff members dedicated to the fraternity system. 1 for fraternities, 1 for
sororities, and one for minority organizations that don't want to be in the
mainstream system. Schools should have zero staff dedicated to the "greek"
system. Greek letter organizations are free associations of citizens that
operate on the periphery of the school. But we need staff. And we need budget
and fees to pay to educate this system, and monitor them.

Expand this to every corner of campus. You not only need many staff dedicated
to diversity programs, you must take "fees" from students to pay for diversity
days, weeks, and months. I served in Georgia Tech's student government, and
watched every week as student organizations came through asking for money to
pay for bands, t-shirts, refreshments, banners, etc, all from student funds.
Many of the projects were nice ideas, few of them justified boosting the cost
of education for a school's students.

At most schools, there are multiple staff members dedicated to purposes for
which there should be zero staff. But some combination of social agendas and
lawsuit avoidance builds up the headcount.

Students pay for access to sporting events, which used to be about actual
students competing, but are now huge cash cows that serve as farm leagues for
pro sports teams. Students now pay hundreds of dollars in fees for the
_chance_ to see their school's sporting events, even though stadium capacities
are often triple or more the student population.

~~~
steve-howard
I don't know if there are many schools like this, but the Greek houses at
Northwestern are all on campus property. As I understand it, the frats do not
pay rent, but members still pay rent which the frat then keeps. So my on-
campus living cost per year is $8k, and theirs is essentially $0. I love
seeing my money go to things that have no relation to me.

~~~
yardie
This must be unique to Northwestern. The housing prices at other universities
is listed on the residential housing page. Greek housing was no different than
anyone else and were a little more since the houses weren't as dense as a
tower block.

The only way I can see the Greeks at Northwestern getting away with this is if
they covered all the maintenance and all the utility charges. Considering that
most of those houses are old and paid for NU wouldn't have to charge anything
beyond that.

~~~
steve-howard
I believe that's the case, and that they actually have to pay for ADA upgrades
on some buildings if they haven't already. It's still the same kind of housing
that other students pay for.

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aidenn0
So tuition has tripled, and it's all because of the administrative budget,
which is a whopping 15% of expenditures?

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cpaone
Administrators are setting the priorities of expenditures. In so-called
"fiscal emergency," administrators have opted to cut academic programs and
freeze hiring in teaching while at the same time increasing expenditures on
bureaucracy. The article cites abundant examples.

~~~
aidenn0
Still, according to the article's own numbers, if we reset the administrative
fraction of the budget to 1947 levels, we would only shave 6% off of costs;
this hardly explains much of the huge increase in inflation-adjusted tuition
since then.

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wisty
Administrators can be frightfully bad at capital allocation. They don't have
much incentive to spend wisely, and they are often disconnected from what
really matters to a university. Also, the more admins you have, the louder
their voice will be, and the more misdirected intellectual firepower they will
have making reports about how their decisions are the best.

IIRC, the real cost is often building, and IT. There's also money getting
wasted by academics, because they have to follow too many rules. If you give
academics a budget, and tell them to spend it wisely, they will probably do
so. Give them a list of rules, and they will follow the rules, even if it
means they waste a lot of money.

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americandesi333
One thing I want to mention is that this article sheds a lot of negative light
on adjunct faculty with no strong arguments of why.

From my university experience, I actually got a lot more out of faculty that
were loaned from the business world because they were great at sharing
practical relevent knowledge and examples.

Full-time faculty on the other hand lacked the knowledge of the outside
practical world and were outdated in their teaching.

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bryanwb
Universities are more expensive because they have become educational country
clubs/babysitting facilities, complete w/ professional sports teams, grandiose
athletic facilities (often for those professional athletes), and n number of
caretakers to plan students lives and cater to every one of their
developmental needs.

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nazgulnarsil
Rising demand and inelastic supply leads to rising prices. This is a good
thing. The price premium the wealthy are willing to pay allows schools to
massively subsidize their brain drain of the brightest students. If you get
into stanford and your parents make less than 60k, you don't pay tuition at
all. The alternative is rationing which leaves just as many students out in
the cold but doesnt allow the school to capture extra rents.

So the other issue is inelastic supply. This is partially down to the
regulatory environment, but that isn't the whole picture. I haven't done
enough research to understand why there aren't more schools starting up. I
suspect it's an accreditation barrier to entry issue.

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Greedy_Fools
It's just about stealing. All they're doing is is old fashioned theivery. Just
because they are allowed to, nobody can stop them. This country celebrates
theivery, and is willing to sacrifice the minds of generations to honor and
protect theives.

