Page 253 - Crisis in Higher Education

224 • Crisis in Higher Education

The Huffington Post claims that administrative growth has outpaced
enrollment and faculty growth, and this disparate increase has contin-
ued unabated for many years. The National Center for Policy Analysis
2
states that tuition has grown much faster than the rate of inflation, yet the
increase is not going to instruction; rather, it is going to administrators
who do no teaching and conduct no research. 3
The New York Times argues that the large increase in administrative
spending is highly correlated with the tremendous increase in tuition.
State support for higher education has increased substantially, but per
capita subsidies are lower because enrollment has increased significantly
over the past three or four decades. On the federal side, Pell Grants are
three times larger than they were in 2000. When adjusted for inflation,
full-time faculty salaries are only slightly higher than they were in 1970.
When the trend towards part-time faculty, who make substantially less
money, is included, instructional costs are actually lower today. In con-
trast, the administrative positions and spending have grown rapidly. 4
In Chapter 4, as well as other places in the book, the following data have
been cited, and these data are consistent with the comments in the preced-
ing discussion. From 1978 to 2014, the number of administrative positions
increased by 369%, whereas tenured faculty increased by only 23%. For
5
the same period, enrollment in undergraduate degree programs grew by
73%, which is much higher than the rate of growth in tenured faculty and
much smaller than the growth in administration. In addition to the rapid
6
growth in the number of administrators, wages for top- and mid-level
administrators are growing much faster than faculty wages or the rate of
1
inflation. These data along with other information cited earlier indicate
that universities have made poor decisions about allocating resources to
administration. The key questions are as follows: How did universities get
to this point? How can this be resolved?

11.1 ADMINISTRATIVE STRUCTURE
Before diving into these questions, it is helpful to understand a university’s
structure. Figure 11.1 is a simplified version of an organizational chart.
A university tends to have a governing body, which is often called the
board of trustees. At public universities, the board is appointed by state
government. The board approves strategies, plans, budgets, personnel, and