A significant reason for the administrative bloat is that students pay only a small portion of administrative costs. The lion's share of university resources comes from the federal and state governments, as well as private gifts and fees for non-educational services. The large and increasing rate of government subsidy for higher education facilitates administrative bloat by insulating students from the costs. Reducing government subsidies would do much to make universities more efficient.
For public universities the administrative bloat is much worse than at private colleges - administrative positions grew by 39% between 1993 and 2007, almost four times the 9.8% increase for instructional positions. At private universities, without access to the public largess, administrative and instructional positions increased at about the same rate.
http://www.goldwaterinstitute.org/article/administrative-bloat-american-universities-real-reason-high-costs-higher-education
Only to point this out....but most of these HR hires...are simply friends-of-the-friends network. So and so is looking for a job in the $80k range, and someone fixes up a new spot in some department with a fake purpose. They hide the person there for several years....then they move onto another university to another fake job.
If you line up all members of a university and look for fake jobs....I’d make a guess that thirty percent of every university staff could be dismissed and you wouldn’t even notice the guy or gal gone. Add to this....each fake job requires another computer, another desk, another office, and another support building.
Universities and colleges around the nation weren’t too interested in holding down tuition as they continued to add thousands of new administrative positions. Many came with tenure as professors are lucky to get.
This is empire building in higher education.
College deans and presidents are like the central socialist government: more bodies give them more personnel to lead.
So long as that "gold-egg-laying goose" called the taxpayer is available, there will be no stopping the rolling up of costs and worse yet, the FUTURE COSTS OF PENSIONS AND BENEFITS for these parasites who can't hold a REAL job in the private sector, at anywhere NEAR the salaries/benefits they get in Taxpayer-funded phony positions.
This is even MORE-PRONOUNCED in Unionized positons in the Public Sector....where contracts reward long-dues-paying Members (Seniority), and protect their lack of skills/production via the Union Contracts, which prevent incompetence testing or removal from a job.
All this will disappear when taxpayer subsidized tenure is completely abolished.
I objected to my son’s tuition increase last year, and demanded an explanation. I ended up having lunch with the CFO of the University.
He “explained” that students “demand” more stuff - so in an effort to “compete” they “must” have a world-class fitness facility, ever-more opulent dorms, and expensive weekend entertainment. Yet, as he explained, other universities that are ever more opulent are still “kicking our ass”.
I reviewed the financials. It’s amusing how the various fees, tuition, meal plans and everything else simply goes into a single pot of money from which it is drained faster than it accumulates.
He said they are lowering SAT requirements, going to adjunct professors more and more.
So it’s a race to pamper students and lower academic standards and rigor to get as much student loan money in the door as possible.
It was an amusing view, that’s for sure.
I just needed proof of what I knew already - Universities are about loan money flow - and everything else.....EVERYTHING else is secondary to getting a gullible future debt-slave to show up, have a good time for a few years and get spit out penniless and unemployable.
The answer lies within my tagline.
Everyone pays.
It isn't Democrat or Republican... it is basic, unprincipled thievery.
My mother lost her wallet on Sat. and fortunately, when we returned to get it... it HAD been returned. However it was $120 light. The clerk at the customer service counter where we picked it up would NOT look me in the eye and her face was beet red!!!
People stink!
The same people who are unable to hold down tuition are the same so-called intelligentsia that taught and now advise the government on reducing the debt.