University Admin Bloat

There's a similar issue in academia. Tuition costs have risen far faster than inflaction but the number of professors per student is roughly similar. Where does all the extra go? Administrators and bureaucracy!

I don't think administration overheads in universities have grown because admin workers are easier to cut than academics. It's more like money acting like a river of treacle. It moves slowly, spreads out slowly and may never make it to the destination at all. If you dump a giant bucket of treacle in the middle of the the floor all at once it takes a long time for any to reach the walls and most of it will end up sticking to the place where it was dropped.Money flows into universitie

I suggest you look at the ways universities ACTUALLY spend money. Yes, many, including my alma mater, spent lavishly on fancy new buildings. No question about that. But the primary growth of expenses at universities has been the huge growth in administrative positions. Administrators want to get paid more, and what better way to do that than to pretend you need more people working UNDER you. There is zero reason why every other industry in the world has reduced their administrative overhead

In USA where private universities can choose to spend their dollars on admin, sure, go ahead. But this is a much bigger issue in publicly funded systems. Here in Canada, the trend described in this article has been going on for decades. Not mentioned is how each vice president, provost, chancillor, department head, co-head, chair-of-such and such all have their own office support staff, admin assistants etc. There is also no incentive to reduce such administrative overhead -- indeed, (federal) g

This is true of big name research institutions too. Since 2000, spending on administration in US colleges nationwide has increased faster than the combined increase of scholarships, grants, and professorships. (Source: Graeber, 2018ish).This requires cost savings, and that comes at the cost of the things a college should be doing: teaching, and educating. After all, the bureaucrats who make the budgets aren't going to reduce their own salaries. Savings must be found, and it can't po

The amount of money that goes towards marketing, administration, and buildings that are far fancier than they need to be is the issue. The professors are a fraction of the costs. Universities spend far more money than they need to on useless extraneous offices and bloat. Get back to focusing on education and the costs will drop.

I don't think Professor's compensation makes up a big chunk of universities' spending. Administration seems to be the biggest and fastest growing cost.

Administration can consume any amount of money, so long as it isn't getting in the way of the money coming in the door. Just look at universities in USA. They're not doing anything now they weren't doing in 1980, yet tuition inflation was 7% over for most of the period since then. Where did the money go? They hired more assistant administrators, to justify higher salaries for the top administrators. Also the perks are pretty nice.

Tuition has skyrocketed yet class-size keeps going up and many tenured professorships are in fact being abolished across the country. Where is the money going?To an explosive growth in administrative (ie non-academic) staff. With the government giving out loans to anyone who wishes to attend, colleges have no reason to keep their costs in check.Dartmouth, my alma mater, has about one employee per student. Most of these people do nothing, at best. Many are engaged in running one of the doze

Many people have pointed to an overpopulation being the root cause for this, but I believe that ignores the increasingly inflating administrative staff at universities. That is, it is also a budget problem. The budget for the increase in professor staff is being diverted into additional administrative positions that do... something, apparently. I'm not convinced that the administrative bloat is worth a fraction of what it costs.