The issue of administrative costs (e.g. IT) growing rapidly boils down to the fact that there are no economic forces that would otherwise enable the administrat

The issue of administrative costs (e.g. IT) growing rapidly boils down to the fact that there are no economic forces that would otherwise enable the administrators to be held accountable for their spending. In the private sector, if you are responsible for a P&L, and "P" isn't a positive number, you'll eventually lose your job. In higher ed, there is no metric that similarly lays bare whether an administrator is effective or not. This allows spending to run rampant and weak managers to thrive, which just continues the cycle. If anybody figures out how align spending with outcomes in this sort of environment, they deserve a nobel prize in economics.