

Higher Education's Aristocrats - Thevet
https://www.jacobinmag.com/2014/09/higher-educations-aristocrats/

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s_q_b
It's not just the pay of a few top level officials: the number of employees in
the university bureaucracy has exploded over the past few decades. What's
interesting is that this growth tracks quite well with the increase in tuition
costs.

Forget the president's salary, does a small university really need six
separate deans of residential life for undergrads alone, plus a support staff
of three for each?

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jessaustin
_...this growth tracks quite well with the increase in tuition costs._

Which tracks, perhaps slightly less well, the simultaneous increase in student
loans.

EDIT: Sure the effects of "the crisis" might be a recent contributor, but the
trend in both tuition and loan volume is longer-term than that.

~~~
cb18
_increase in student loans._

Following the decline in the viability of sub-prime mortgages as an
"investment."

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bruceb
Well this is a private institution so I am little less concerned about its
spending habits. For some college students might decide not to fork over the
money. But for U of Chicago probably not as their "..undergraduate admission
rate of 8.4% is among the country's most selective universities" (wikipedia)
They will get people to pay for a while to come.

That being said the board of regents for state U. seem to be a chummy affair
with those who sit on them appointed by the governor (at least in my state). I
don't have a great deal of faith in individual board members to rock the boat
and risk giving up the prestige of sitting on the board of a large university.

~~~
araes
While I can't say I'm concerned about the University of Chicago (not a direct
impact on my life), I am concerned about the overall trend that it represents.
The fact that students are willing to pay for it doesn't mean too much (IMO)
as the economics and incentives of higher education (2008 downturn, skimpy
state budgets, tuition grants, non-dischargeable loan debt, graduate research
funding) have driven most schools to a challenging place where students are
mostly choosing between institutions that are kind of mercenary, and ones that
are blatantly mercenary.

This story comments on the University of Chicago mostly because its one of the
extremes. However, the issue is really the trend - The move to run schools
like big business.

To gauge success by non-student oriented metrics like year-over-year
recruitment growth or annual profit. To compete for, and try to hire big shot
administrators / executives (cause that $1M (Example) Harvard guy is worth 10x
more than some $100k random dude). To vote large administrative / executive
pay raises or parachutes (not general faculty) while the main public story is
the rapidly rising cost of tuition. To tailor the school towards showing good
metrics, rather than educating students and letting metrics flow from that. To
focus primarily on research output because its more profitable / efficient
than educating a bunch of undergrads.

IMO, its all the problems that we're vaguely aware exist in higher education,
but the University of Chicago is just particularly egregious about it and
could make Obama look bad if he puts his library in it while talking about how
important educating all our students (not just the wealthy ones) is.

~~~
eli_gottlieb
>To gauge success by non-student oriented metrics like year-over-year
recruitment growth or annual profit. To compete for, and try to hire big shot
administrators / executives (cause that $1M (Example) Harvard guy is worth 10x
more than some $100k random dude). To vote large administrative / executive
pay raises or parachutes (not general faculty) while the main public story is
the rapidly rising cost of tuition. To tailor the school towards showing good
metrics, rather than educating students and letting metrics flow from that. To
focus primarily on research output because its more profitable / efficient
than educating a bunch of undergrads.

All while squeezing graduate-student stipends and replacing tenured faculty
with poverty-wage adjuncts.

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barry-cotter
_UChicago’s current situation seems to constitute a worst-case example of the
“failure of governing boards to ensure that institutions adhere to their
stated purpose,” as an August 2014 American Council of Trustees and Alumni
report put it. The ACTA correctly lays partial blame for a decline in
educational quality and an increase in costs on trustees, but ultimately
identifies the problem as a “strategy of passive governance” and recommends
greater voluntary engagement and scrupulosity within a system where trustees
“are beholden to none.”_

The article makes the situation sound like a vile cesspit but "a decline in
educational quality", really? U.Chicago is a super-elite university, like
HYPS. Undergraduates are at no risk of having instructors of as low a standard
as at say, Berkeley.

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onetimeusename
I think U Chicago is a top tier school but I don't understand what you mean
about Berkeley. UC Berkeley has a low standard of instructors? It is usually
in the top 5 for math, physics, and computer science. Were you talking about
departments aside from these?

~~~
geebee
I'm a little bewildered by this as well... it didn't sound like a joke, but I
may be missing it. Perhaps this is a reference to the higher undergraduate
student/faculty ratio, and the greater difficulty in getting access to faculty
at the undergrad level?

I'm not sure what departments would be considered weak at Berkeley - according
to the National Research Council, Berkeley has the most graduate departments
in the top 10 of any university. Then again… Berkeley and elite private
research universities tend to have similar numbers of grad students, and of
course access to professors is much higher for PhD students than undergrads.

Berkeley has a lot of problems, largely stemming from having a very large
number of undergraduates (and a higher percentage of low income students) than
most private elite research institutions (there are substantial social
benefits to this as well), but quality of faculty is probably Berkeley's
strongest suit.

