Posted on 10/12/2010 8:00:24 AM PDT by Academiadotorg
A man who Accuracy in Academia rarely sees eye-to-eye with nonetheless makes a good point in the October 8, 2010 issue of the Chronicle of Higher Education. “As for costs, universities typically spend only one-third of their budgets on faculty salaries,” Cary Nelson of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) writes. “Despite more than 10 years of education after high school, most people standing in front of a college classroom earn less than $60,000 a year, considering that contingent faculty members, who are not eligible for tenure, make up two-thirds of the faculty work force.”
“Most earn less than $35,000. And most graduate students paid as teachers earn less than $20,000 a year.”
“It’s not faculty salaries that have grown so much over the years; it’s the increasing number of administrators and their salaries—along with unnecessary building—that is breaking the higher education bank. That’s where you tuition money goes. Why? Because administrators set one another’s salaries and pad their staffs.”
Nelson is also an English professor at the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana. The very issue in which Nelson made these assertions features 56 pages of want ads: 19 for faculty jobs, 14 for administrative posts and another 4 for executive positions. That’s just about 50-50 instructional v. administrative.
“Between 1993 and 2007, the number of full-time administrators per 100 students at America’s leading universities grew by 39 percent, while the number of employees engaged in teaching, research or service only grew by 18 percent,” Jay P. Greene wrote in a study for the Goldwater Institute that came out last summer. “Inflation-adjusted spending on administration per student increased by 61 percent during the same period, while instructional spending per student rose 39 percent.”
(Excerpt) Read more at academia.org ...
Grad student slavery (well, indentured servanture) at large land grant colleges.
“most people standing in front of a college classroom earn less than $60,000 a year.”
For how many hours?
“..while the number of employees engaged in teaching, research or service only grew by 18 percent.”
Since this is per student, why should it have grown at all?
Just because the administrative kettle is blacker, doesn’t make the academic pot any whiter.
As long as the feds make the financial aid cow available, venal administrators and status-seeking regents will continue to milk it.
“For how many hours?”
Bravo! Excellent question. A typical TA (teacher’s assistant) probably teaches two or three classes a week (about 10 hours work) plus grading papers and lesson prep (another 10 hours) for a total of maybe 20 hours. BUT that includes a week off for fall break, a week off for spring break, weeks off for Christmas break, and 1/4 of the year off for summer. It’s the equivalent of over $140,000 if they worked full time.
“For how many hours?”
Bravo! Excellent question. A typical TA (teacher’s assistant) probably teaches two or three classes a week (about 10 hours work) plus grading papers and lesson prep (another 10 hours) for a total of maybe 20 hours. BUT that includes a week off for fall break, a week off for spring break, weeks off for Christmas break, and 1/4 of the year off for summer. It’s the equivalent of over $140,000 if they worked full time.
It is time to drive a stake right through the heart of this corrupt university monster.
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