Page 252 - Crisis in Higher Education

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Reforming Administration

and Management

The evidence is overwhelming. A primary reason for the rising costs in
higher education is a rapid increase in spending on administration and
management. Inflation-adjusted tuition at public universities tripled from
1980 to 2000. This was much faster than the rate of increase in health-
care costs. In the U.S. economy, only cigarettes and other tobacco prod-
ucts increased faster. Universities have not used the additional funds for
instruction/faculty because student-faculty ratios have not changed since
1975. Instead, universities choose to increase spending on administra-
1
tion and staff. At the same time, they began to replace tenured faculty
who held key administrative positions with professional managers. When
tenured faculty held these posts, administrators and faculty tended to
work cooperatively, but as these jobs transitioned to professional manag-
ers, administrators could act independently and faculty inputs were mar-
ginalized. Efforts by universities to shift hiring from tenured faculty to
1
contractual faculty, who serve at the pleasure of administrators, further
divided administration and faculty.
Growth in administrations combined with less faculty involvement cre-
ates a blame game that pits administrators against faculty, wastes valuable
resources, and stymies innovation. When administrators are asked what
are the most difficult issues facing public universities, the two primary
answers are (1) declining state support and (2) difficult and uncooperative
faculty. At the same time, faculty members describe their university as
being highly centralized and bloated with too many administrators earn-
ing exorbitant salaries and having leadership that is balancing the budget
on the backs of faculty.

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