A report issued today says that the number of administrators for every 100 college students increased by 39 percent from 1993 to 2007, while the number of professors and researchers rose by 18 percent during that period. The study of 198 public and private universities was released by the nonprofit Goldwater Insitute, and led by Jay P. Greene, a senior fellow at the institute who is also head of the department of education reform at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville. Officials at one university system, the University of Texas, objected to the study’s methodology. They told The Dallas Morning News that the study included counselors, deans, and accountants in the administrative ranks, which artificially inflated those numbers. Mr. Greene said the point was to account for staff not directly involved in instruction or research. His report blames this “bloat” for the increase in college costs.
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14 Responses to Growth in Administrators Outstrips Growth in Faculty Members
22280998 - August 17, 2010 at 4:08 pm
The objections from the University of Texas are on the mark. Counselors and accountanst may not teach, but they perform very useful work in support of the education and research mission.What has been the growth among deans, vice presidents and executive officers (along with their asistants and associates)?
22228715 - August 17, 2010 at 4:10 pm
Hmm, the quotations seem to indicate that the report would prefer to see teachers hired, but then lumps researchers into the teacher category (which is not always a good assumption, at least at research institutions.) Also, all non-faculty are assumed to be non-education-related… but some of those non-faculty (e.g., career counselors, judicial officers, front-line residence hall staff) have FAR more student contact and do a lot more teaching than some faculty researchers (and even some teachers).So, it’s all about your categories. Want a green suit? Turn on a green light!
lakemendota - August 17, 2010 at 4:24 pm
Federal and state mandates related to all kinds of issues from non-discrimination to treatment of animals has resulted in the increased hiring of of non-teaching staff many of whom support the work of both students and teachers in meaningful ways and are generally underappreciated and underpaid. As for senior academic administrators; someone has to make the decisions since many professors haven’t a clue and department chairs are loath to take on anyone.
landrumkelly - August 17, 2010 at 4:59 pm
The really valid comparison would be dollar$ spent to hire admini$trator$ compared to tho$e spent to hire faculty members.Landrum Kelly
_perplexed_ - August 17, 2010 at 5:27 pm
The rapid growth in “administration”, however defined, is less surprising than the 18% growth in the number of “professors” and “researchers” per student during this period. Unless there is something funny in the way these folks are counted, this hasn’t happened at my R1!
11191947 - August 17, 2010 at 5:59 pm
Going by the following sentence in the Dallas Morning News article, the researchers were evidently using IPEDS Fall Staff (more recently Human Resources) survey data. Its categories don’t deal with whether or not employees directly work with students. “UTA has 366 administrative, executive and managerial employees, up from 188 in 1993.”Counselors and accountants are not in the admin-exec-man category but in “Other professionals (support/service)” which also includes computer software engineers and museum conservators.
cwinton - August 17, 2010 at 9:24 pm
Are we talking about FTE faculty and administrators here? It has been my experience that increasing amounts of faculty time are being allocated to administrative tasks (in the form of release time from teaching for things like accreditation, accountability studies, strategic planning exercises, and the like). At the same time, I’ve seen administrators on faculty lines spending decreasing amounts of time teaching as their jobs have become increasingly consumed by externally mandated administrivia. The study also does not seem to address the administrative growth (and attendant cost) that has occurred to service the added reporting demands that are now de rigueur.
socantsocwk - August 17, 2010 at 10:31 pm
I agree that we need data concerning change in tenure-line faculty as compared with increases in adjunct or part-time positions. I believe the trend has been to increase administrative and the latter at the expense of tenure positions.
hemingway - August 18, 2010 at 12:16 pm
Having just completed another summer with very few faculty on campus, it occurs to me that, in part, the reason we need more administrative staff is because we run our university 12 months of the year. Faculty are only required to work four months in the fall semester and four months in the spring semester. We still have to provide many services to the students and faculty whether they are on campus on not. I hope these variables were factored into the study before sending the message that administration is bloated. Such reports only promote polarization between faculty and administration something we need to end. No other workplace would be allowed to discriminate in this way. We are all in this together.
rhancuff - August 18, 2010 at 12:59 pm
Hem, unless your administrative staff only works partial years, you don’t need “more administrative staff” to run a university 12 months.
dopefein - August 18, 2010 at 3:29 pm
The other day, I got ahold of the current organizational chart of my school, and then compared it to the one from the late 80′s. It was utterly striking. At a mid-size state college, we have increased administrative positions (especially vice presidents, of which we now have over 10, along with associate vice presidents and numerous directors of this and that) by 10 fold. The number of faculty tenure-track lines of the same period: decreased by half.I have no doubt that federal and state laws and requirements have necessitated the hiring of certain administrative staff, but this argument is used far too loosely at this point. Nothing should necessitate a told-fold increase in administrative positions, along with a subsequent purging of half of the full-time faculty lines. What is even more shocking is how often faculty like myself are asked to do “administrative duties,” like advising students. When I ask my students, “Didn’t you see the advising department?” they respond, “They told me to see you.” What?! And I don’t mean just talking to students about the major, I mean, telling them what they have to fulfill, overall, to graduate. I’m happy to help my students, but then let’s cut the advising staff. While we’re at it, why don’t we start merging some of those offices. The redundancy is absurd.Under budget constraints, they eliminated faculty lines through attrition, but actually ADDED administrative staff! For the commentor above who says we need to address the faculty-administration divide, I say, it’s too late. As far as I am concerned, the administration on my campus (I cannot speak for others) is a bloated mess that is anathema to higher education.
goodeyes - August 18, 2010 at 9:02 pm
We add high paid administrators and then a secretary and graduate assistants to do the work. I think it must add prestige to add them instead of looking at where to best use resources.
11274135 - August 19, 2010 at 1:49 am
Arizona State University has produced a rather comprehensive response to the Golwater report, summarized at http://asunews.asu.edu/20100817_goldwater. We’re used to responding to Goldwater Institute data manipulations. In this case, Goldwater has used IPEDS data but has fused what IPEDS treats as two distinct categories of of employees–management/administration and academic support staff–and called all of them “administration.” That’s one of about 6 or 7 data distortions pointed out in ASU’s response.
prgibbons - August 20, 2010 at 4:47 pm
Accountants, business managers, lawyers, human resources, if those don’t count as part of administration what does? Lets just call them highly paid non-educators and get back to the debate. The fact is, universities are employing more and more adults and recieving more and more revenue to educate each student. That is inefficient and wasteful. Don’t let the spin doctors at ASU, UT or other universities mislead you.Finally, the Dr. Crow at ASU should be appolgizing to the people of Arizona. His university cost taxpayers and students thousands of dollars each year ($15,000 in student related expenditures) and he can’t even graduate half his students in 6 years.