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I work in the administration for a top public US research University. The increase in size of University administration and bureaucracy is due to a number of fa

I work in the administration for a top public US research University. The increase in size of University administration and bureaucracy is due to a number of factors. One is certainly unnecessary employment and over-employment. Not only at high levels, with VP's, Assistant VP's, Assistant Vice VP's, Chancellors, Vice Chancellor's, Executive VP's, Directors of XYZ, etc, but also at low levels where the work done by 3 could realistically be done by 1. However it's also important to recognize that not all of the runaway growth of University bureaucracy is due to poor management or redundant workers; expansion of IT infrastructure and increased regulatory requirements - especially for public institutions - demand more labor. These are the obvious culprits, but beyond these, because the modern University has become far more than just a place of higher education and has come to resemble a miniature city, it is expected to serve the diverse non-academic needs of tens of thousands of students, in addition to more traditional academic needs. Counseling and advisory services, recreational activities, food service, engagement and diversity programs, ubiquitous computing, etc. all add to the University's bottom line. Universities fear that if they were to stamp their feet and refuse to supply these amenities in the name of keeping down tuition, matriculation rates would decline as students would seek greener pastures elsewhere. Add to this the fact that Universities receive no penalty from the market for continually increasing their prices. Because student loans are available to service ever increasing tuition costs, and students pretty much need to go to college to succeed in the 21st century, demand for college education is highly inelastic. What economic entity wouldn't raise its prices if it knew demand for its product wouldn't suffer? In a traditional market, as one supplier increases price, competitors enter the market offering lower prices. This doesn't happen in the market for higher education because the value of a University is largely tied to its prestige, and prestige cannot be easily generated by competitors. We bemoan the high cost of University education then mock the University of Phoenix and similar offerings. Market dynamics are the guilty party here.

secabeen 9y ago
This is a good answer. The price increase is not uniform across the academy, and much of it is signaling-based. At many state schools, the amount spent per student has actually gone down over the last 30 years: https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/uc-educational-expenses-lower-today-20-years-ago-report-finds https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/uc-educational-e... College is more expensive for the student because state funding for students has dropped precipitously. That means an increase in tuition, but that increase pretty linearly-maps to the decrease in state funding. Now. many private schools have increased their nameplate cost. This is the signaling issue I mentioned before. When StateU tuition rises from $5k/yr to $10/yr over 5 years, the private universities use that increase to justify an increase in their nameplate cost from $25k/yr to $40k/yr, because they can. Of course, few people actually pay that. Increases in the actual amount people pay for college (other than at 4-year state funded schools, due to the changes in state funding) are much tamer than the headlines say: http://www.businessinsider.com/college-cost-changes-over-25-years-2015-4 http://www.businessinsider.com/college-cost-changes-over-25-...
- maxerickson 9y ago
  By the numbers people tend to go to 4 year state funded schools. https://www.statista.com/statistics/183995/us-college-enrollment-and-projections-in-public-and-private-institutions/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/183995/us-college-enroll... I think 'other than' isn't really the right phrase to use when excluding 3/4 of students.
  - ZeroGravitas 9y ago
    That's missing his point. People think that the prices are rising dramatically. He's pointing out that for 3/4s of people those price rises aren't price rises, it's just the person directly paying has changed from the state (i.e. paying via taxation) to the individual student paying. This looks like a price rise to the individual student, but not to the University receiving the payment.
    - maxerickson 9y ago
      My quibble is with Increases in the actual amount people pay for college (other than at 4-year state funded schools, due to the changes in state funding) are much tamer than the headlines say: Pretty sure I understood it correctly and that my point is germane. The increases in tuition at public schools are real increases in the actual amount that most people pay for college (which was my point, it doesn't work good to hand wave away the effect on the majority). As you say, they aren't entirely from increases in spending on college, but again, it says actual amount people pay, which doesn't really imply total spending, it implies the cost to the student.
      - secabeen 9y ago
        I think we agree, the question is what is the next step. The common rhetoric we hear is that tuition is increasing because those greedy Universities are charging too much, and spending wastefully. My argument is that that's a false narrative. The amount spent on students is relatively flat, and the staff and faculty at state schools are more efficient and are doing more with less than they were 30 years ago. What we should be doing in response to the increase in tuition is to restore state funding, not attacking the Universities.
ChicagoBoy11 9y ago
Loved everything you said except the part about market dynamics being the culprit. I think you correctly identify the widespread availability of student loans as a key factor driving this bloat; but there's nothing "market-based" about them. In a market, interest rates would vary according to the risk of the loan. Bad schools which don't teach and don't actually improve student outcomes and simply spend on other things would suffer. Students who now go to schools who do nothing for them and have no chance of paying their loans -- or spend most of their adult life trying to -- would be dissuaded from making that incorrect financial choice. And, most of all, federal loan availability is conditional on all sorts of regulatory requirements, which makes it especially difficult for new entrants to challenge the current monopolies big schools enjoy. I think if we addressed some of these issues -- and therefore did bring the state of higher education closer to a market -- we'd see these dynamics change.
- meri_dian 9y ago
  Those are good points. What I was trying to put across by invoking "market dynamics" was that the state of the current market as it exists is driving bloat rather than the capriciousness of individual administrators. You're right that the market is not in an unrestrained state.
  - ChicagoBoy11 9y ago
    Agree! I work in K-12 and we've seen the same exact thing over the past few years. The emphasis on top-down control and quality measures have done a ton of good for consultants, advisors, data analysts, and IT depts - and a ton of nothing for students. My favorite part of this whole debacle is seeing districts and schools using administrative bloat to their advantage when creatively reporting "Student:Staff" ratios.
    - wavefunction 9y ago
      I can't believe folks would even accept a metric like "student:staff" rather than class-size. I would have no care about the ratio of myKid:janitor for example, no offense to janitors intended.
fish_fan 9y ago
> Universities fear that if they were to stamp their feet and refuse to supply these amenities in the name of keeping down tuition, matriculation rates would decline as students would seek greener pastures elsewhere. I find this so fascinating. In a normal market, demand is driven by differentiating factors, and I imagine paying for a reduced set of services could be wildly popular. I certainly never took advantage of most of the services I paid for in college—I was too busy with school. Meanwhile, schools appear to be in the race for positioning schools as anything but a place to get a degree.... which is the entire role of college in society today. I would quit my job and finish my degree tomorrow if there was a "no bullshit, we'll just get you your degree as fast as possible" option. But all I see are residency requirements, tuition that appears to be at least an order of magnitude more than what my professors cumulatively make from teaching me, etc etc. Very disheartening to someone who loves the culture of academia. And don't forget, they STILL make you buy textbooks and allow the profs to pocket the profits.
- verall 9y ago
  I think the reason is that customers interested in "no bullshit" (<=middle class) are not bringing the bulk of the cash. Nearly every community college I have seen fits your description very well. Public universities have a goal to get people that are wealthier and will donate.
- cycomachead 9y ago
  Also, consider that the desire for greener pastures is a very top-down cultural thing in the US, that's not always true world wide (though, it increasingly seems that way.) By number of students, most higher ed institutions are community colleges, which are (for the most part) low on the BS and extra fun. For profits, and a growing number of 'bootcamp' type schools also fit in this area. However, 4 year schools (starting off with good ol' Harvard) completely dominate the idea of what higher ed is like. Employers still revere 4 year degrees and a "big name" still has its advantages. Many students grow up thinking that's the only/right/best option for them - so between dozens of essentially equivalently good schools (i.e. The "Top 50", and arguable the top 100-200 too), students pick on factors other than learning. A few months ago, 538 wrote a fun piece called "Shut Up About Harvard", which is worth a read. https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/shut-up-about-harvard/ https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/shut-up-about-harvard/
justadeveloper2 9y ago
Having also worked in higher ed for quite a long time (I've been out since 2004) I always quipped that young people really just want "lifestyle camps" or "lifestyle towns" where they can have the experience they want without all the pesky classes and studying getting in the way. Go there for a couple years, party down, then maybe move on in life. It would save a lot of people a lot of hardship and pain.
- nsxwolf 9y ago
  I've thought this too and I bet it could be done for far less than half the cost. You'd have a lot less debt and roughly equal job prospects when you "graduated".
- chillacy 9y ago
  When I look back at my undergrad years, my favorite time was the week of no classes which was intended to give students time to study for finals, but was actually largely used to socialize.
IgorPartola 9y ago
This. I worked in residential life while I was in college. One of the key things that was emphasized to us was that colleges and universities are now becoming accessible to a much larger section of the population, to the point where kids that a generation ago would have stayed at home because they couldn't handle life at a university are now able to attend. This is why everything under the purview of the dean of students has ballooned: dorms are not dorms anymore. They are not where you sleep, but where you live as a community with the support from the university. And to fund that, the university must charge more. Strictly speaking as a student you do get a lot more services at a university today than you did 10 or 20 or 50 years ago. It just comes at a cost, and there is no cheaper alternative that is just as good (taking into account actual education as well as perceived value of your degree).
sevenfive 9y ago
University of Phoenix is a complete scam, FYI, not a good example here.
- mmcconnell1618 9y ago
  University of Phoenix is a profit driven entity. They started out as a vocational option for military veterans but in an environment where students loans ballooned, so did Phoenix. They focus on collecting as many students as possible, helping them get loans and promising them a college education. My wife taught for them for a short time and from what I saw, the students and the education was not at a college level. Students would be better off going to a local community college for 2 years and then transferring to a state school to graduate. Tuition is lower, education is better. The rapid growth of online degrees may bring competition to the market. Currently, many students choose in-state schools because it is a better value that moving somewhere else. Online allows schools anywhere to compete for those students and may start to drive prices down. Prestige will still be important for more elite universities but I suspect solid state schools may attract students by expanding online options.
jononor 9y ago
True that there is an expectation of the many non-academic needs of students is also well served. In Norway, this is done by an organization separate from the university ('Studentsamskipnad' or Student Welfare Organization). It is responsible for housing, health- services, food et.c. Students pay their semester fee (<100USD) to this organization (no tuition). Possibly this helps for keeping focus on academic needs in universities, though I don't know whether it helps or hinders organizational bloat.
- wavefunction 9y ago
  In the US this is often handled by using funds from educational loans. I knew many years ago one or two people in college who took the money they got from educational loans and used it as a fund to acquire and sell large quantities of narcotics, which they built into a lifestyle business while they were at university.
  - rpiguy 9y ago
    I don't know how common it is anymore, but back in the 1990s it was completely possible to use a student loan to get room and board and then cancel your room and board in the first couple days of school and get a big fat check. A fair number of people did this just because off campus housing and food were cheaper. I wonder if students can still easily do this.
IanCal 9y ago
> Add to this the fact that Universities receive no penalty from the market for continually increasing their prices. This article is about universities in the UK, and they cannot arbitrarily decide to increase their tuition fees for home student. > Because student loans are available to service ever increasing tuition costs For many, a drop in tuition fees would never actually be noticed. For those that start to notice, it'll only make a difference when they're much older. This is because student loans in the UK are income contingent, and forgiven after a set period. Most people will not pay off their loans before they are forgiven.
matt_s 9y ago
Have you read the actual article that for Parkinson's Law? In there you will find the oft-overlooked Law of Multiplication of Subordinates. The findings were based on the expansion of Admiralty in Great Britain after WWI. TL;DR: administration kept expanding even though the number of ships was reduced to 1/3 the size. This is much the same problem identified in the article, what you have said and what I have seen in corporate america as well. Too much administration, some of it required via legislation/regulatory matters. http://www.economist.com/node/14116121 http://www.economist.com/node/14116121
TimPC 9y ago
The article recognizes this and mentions specific regulations to cut in order to reduce administration (at least for the UK).
murph-almighty 9y ago
I feel like University of Phoenix, a for-profit university, is a bit unfair of a comparison to a not-for-profit university. Especially when a significant portion of for-profit universities aren't properly accredited, and actually represent a very significant portion of student loan obligations (see https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/09/the-failure-of-for-profit-colleges/405301/ https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/09/the-fai...).
- rpiguy 9y ago
  The point is that alternatives are appearing that provide education without the mini-city like atmosphere and cost of the traditional university. You are absolutely correct though, many for profit alternatives are not accredited and some of them can be quite predatory. I believe the poster was referencing University of Phoenix as pure "education service." They are accredited. A lot of people who have been to university would probably defend the mini-city model as integral to the experience. More pragmatic folks might argue otherwise.
bpyne 9y ago
Paragraph 2 is worth more discussion. I work for a moderate-sized private university in an urban environment. Beyond the startup and labor (staffing, administration) costs of the amenities, they require real estate as well. While suburban/rural universities may have options for constructing new buildings, we have to rely on purchasing real estate in a fluctuating market. Then we have to re-purpose it, often bringing it up to modern health codes. This is expensive to undertake. A ramification of purchasing real estate, for amenities in current demand, is that we can get stuck with expensive real estate when enrollments are down and, correspondingly, the amenities in those buildings are less used. The amenities come due to demand. But, they're costly. When amenity use is down, we're kind of stuck with those costs unless we can unload or re-purpose the real estate. [EDIT: Added "costs" in sentence 3 paragraph 1.]
autotune 9y ago
> and students pretty much need to go to college to succeed in the 21st century I do not agree with this. There are plenty of trades out there that can earn you a great salary without a degree. If you want a white collar job and are willing to put in the time and effort, there are plenty of ways to connect with employed nerds and show that you are capable of being an employed nerd as well via open source projects. NOBODY sane on github is going to ask for a degree before contributing to open source, and if you do it consistently would likely be as impressive as on-the-job experience.
tmalsburg2 9y ago
I'm a researcher at a university in Germany. Here in Germany, the administration has also been growing for many years and it's growing much faster than research staff. I have never heard anyone say that the administration is staffed with redundant workers. Everyone agrees that the admin people are totally overloaded. The primary reason is, as you say, regulations. However, my impression is that a lot of these regulations are home-made and completely unnecessary. Some people in admin (clearly not everyone) seem to have a tendency to make up new regulations that serve no real purpose apart from securing their own jobs. In a perverse sense, this may actually be rational behavior, so it is not surprising that this is happening. However, this means that poor management is in fact to blame, because what is poor management if not prioritizing your own personal agenda over the good of the institution you're working for. Disclaimer: My experience with (several) German institutions may obviously not translate to US universities. I have worked for one US university (UC system) and I have only (well, mostly) good things to say about the administration there.

secabeen 9y ago

This is a good answer. The price increase is not uniform across the academy, and much of it is signaling-based. At many state schools, the amount spent per student has actually gone down over the last 30 years: https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/uc-educational-expenses-lower-today-20-years-ago-report-finds https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/uc-educational-e... College is more expensive for the student because state funding for students has dropped precipitously. That means an increase in tuition, but that increase pretty linearly-maps to the decrease in state funding. Now. many private schools have increased their nameplate cost. This is the signaling issue I mentioned before. When StateU tuition rises from $5k/yr to $10/yr over 5 years, the private universities use that increase to justify an increase in their nameplate cost from $25k/yr to $40k/yr, because they can. Of course, few people actually pay that. Increases in the actual amount people pay for college (other than at 4-year state funded schools, due to the changes in state funding) are much tamer than the headlines say: http://www.businessinsider.com/college-cost-changes-over-25-years-2015-4 http://www.businessinsider.com/college-cost-changes-over-25-...

maxerickson 9y ago
By the numbers people tend to go to 4 year state funded schools. https://www.statista.com/statistics/183995/us-college-enrollment-and-projections-in-public-and-private-institutions/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/183995/us-college-enroll... I think 'other than' isn't really the right phrase to use when excluding 3/4 of students.
- ZeroGravitas 9y ago
  That's missing his point. People think that the prices are rising dramatically. He's pointing out that for 3/4s of people those price rises aren't price rises, it's just the person directly paying has changed from the state (i.e. paying via taxation) to the individual student paying. This looks like a price rise to the individual student, but not to the University receiving the payment.
  - maxerickson 9y ago
    My quibble is with Increases in the actual amount people pay for college (other than at 4-year state funded schools, due to the changes in state funding) are much tamer than the headlines say: Pretty sure I understood it correctly and that my point is germane. The increases in tuition at public schools are real increases in the actual amount that most people pay for college (which was my point, it doesn't work good to hand wave away the effect on the majority). As you say, they aren't entirely from increases in spending on college, but again, it says actual amount people pay, which doesn't really imply total spending, it implies the cost to the student.
    - secabeen 9y ago
      I think we agree, the question is what is the next step. The common rhetoric we hear is that tuition is increasing because those greedy Universities are charging too much, and spending wastefully. My argument is that that's a false narrative. The amount spent on students is relatively flat, and the staff and faculty at state schools are more efficient and are doing more with less than they were 30 years ago. What we should be doing in response to the increase in tuition is to restore state funding, not attacking the Universities.

ChicagoBoy11 9y ago

Loved everything you said except the part about market dynamics being the culprit. I think you correctly identify the widespread availability of student loans as a key factor driving this bloat; but there's nothing "market-based" about them. In a market, interest rates would vary according to the risk of the loan. Bad schools which don't teach and don't actually improve student outcomes and simply spend on other things would suffer. Students who now go to schools who do nothing for them and have no chance of paying their loans -- or spend most of their adult life trying to -- would be dissuaded from making that incorrect financial choice. And, most of all, federal loan availability is conditional on all sorts of regulatory requirements, which makes it especially difficult for new entrants to challenge the current monopolies big schools enjoy. I think if we addressed some of these issues -- and therefore did bring the state of higher education closer to a market -- we'd see these dynamics change.

meri_dian 9y ago
Those are good points. What I was trying to put across by invoking "market dynamics" was that the state of the current market as it exists is driving bloat rather than the capriciousness of individual administrators. You're right that the market is not in an unrestrained state.
- ChicagoBoy11 9y ago
  Agree! I work in K-12 and we've seen the same exact thing over the past few years. The emphasis on top-down control and quality measures have done a ton of good for consultants, advisors, data analysts, and IT depts - and a ton of nothing for students. My favorite part of this whole debacle is seeing districts and schools using administrative bloat to their advantage when creatively reporting "Student:Staff" ratios.
  - wavefunction 9y ago
    I can't believe folks would even accept a metric like "student:staff" rather than class-size. I would have no care about the ratio of myKid:janitor for example, no offense to janitors intended.

fish_fan 9y ago

> Universities fear that if they were to stamp their feet and refuse to supply these amenities in the name of keeping down tuition, matriculation rates would decline as students would seek greener pastures elsewhere. I find this so fascinating. In a normal market, demand is driven by differentiating factors, and I imagine paying for a reduced set of services could be wildly popular. I certainly never took advantage of most of the services I paid for in college—I was too busy with school. Meanwhile, schools appear to be in the race for positioning schools as anything but a place to get a degree.... which is the entire role of college in society today. I would quit my job and finish my degree tomorrow if there was a "no bullshit, we'll just get you your degree as fast as possible" option. But all I see are residency requirements, tuition that appears to be at least an order of magnitude more than what my professors cumulatively make from teaching me, etc etc. Very disheartening to someone who loves the culture of academia. And don't forget, they STILL make you buy textbooks and allow the profs to pocket the profits.

verall 9y ago
I think the reason is that customers interested in "no bullshit" (<=middle class) are not bringing the bulk of the cash. Nearly every community college I have seen fits your description very well. Public universities have a goal to get people that are wealthier and will donate.
cycomachead 9y ago
Also, consider that the desire for greener pastures is a very top-down cultural thing in the US, that's not always true world wide (though, it increasingly seems that way.) By number of students, most higher ed institutions are community colleges, which are (for the most part) low on the BS and extra fun. For profits, and a growing number of 'bootcamp' type schools also fit in this area. However, 4 year schools (starting off with good ol' Harvard) completely dominate the idea of what higher ed is like. Employers still revere 4 year degrees and a "big name" still has its advantages. Many students grow up thinking that's the only/right/best option for them - so between dozens of essentially equivalently good schools (i.e. The "Top 50", and arguable the top 100-200 too), students pick on factors other than learning. A few months ago, 538 wrote a fun piece called "Shut Up About Harvard", which is worth a read. https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/shut-up-about-harvard/ https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/shut-up-about-harvard/

justadeveloper2 9y ago

Having also worked in higher ed for quite a long time (I've been out since 2004) I always quipped that young people really just want "lifestyle camps" or "lifestyle towns" where they can have the experience they want without all the pesky classes and studying getting in the way. Go there for a couple years, party down, then maybe move on in life. It would save a lot of people a lot of hardship and pain.

nsxwolf 9y ago
I've thought this too and I bet it could be done for far less than half the cost. You'd have a lot less debt and roughly equal job prospects when you "graduated".
chillacy 9y ago
When I look back at my undergrad years, my favorite time was the week of no classes which was intended to give students time to study for finals, but was actually largely used to socialize.

IgorPartola 9y ago

This. I worked in residential life while I was in college. One of the key things that was emphasized to us was that colleges and universities are now becoming accessible to a much larger section of the population, to the point where kids that a generation ago would have stayed at home because they couldn't handle life at a university are now able to attend. This is why everything under the purview of the dean of students has ballooned: dorms are not dorms anymore. They are not where you sleep, but where you live as a community with the support from the university. And to fund that, the university must charge more. Strictly speaking as a student you do get a lot more services at a university today than you did 10 or 20 or 50 years ago. It just comes at a cost, and there is no cheaper alternative that is just as good (taking into account actual education as well as perceived value of your degree).

sevenfive 9y ago

University of Phoenix is a complete scam, FYI, not a good example here.

mmcconnell1618 9y ago
University of Phoenix is a profit driven entity. They started out as a vocational option for military veterans but in an environment where students loans ballooned, so did Phoenix. They focus on collecting as many students as possible, helping them get loans and promising them a college education. My wife taught for them for a short time and from what I saw, the students and the education was not at a college level. Students would be better off going to a local community college for 2 years and then transferring to a state school to graduate. Tuition is lower, education is better. The rapid growth of online degrees may bring competition to the market. Currently, many students choose in-state schools because it is a better value that moving somewhere else. Online allows schools anywhere to compete for those students and may start to drive prices down. Prestige will still be important for more elite universities but I suspect solid state schools may attract students by expanding online options.

jononor 9y ago

True that there is an expectation of the many non-academic needs of students is also well served. In Norway, this is done by an organization separate from the university ('Studentsamskipnad' or Student Welfare Organization). It is responsible for housing, health- services, food et.c. Students pay their semester fee (<100USD) to this organization (no tuition). Possibly this helps for keeping focus on academic needs in universities, though I don't know whether it helps or hinders organizational bloat.

wavefunction 9y ago
In the US this is often handled by using funds from educational loans. I knew many years ago one or two people in college who took the money they got from educational loans and used it as a fund to acquire and sell large quantities of narcotics, which they built into a lifestyle business while they were at university.
- rpiguy 9y ago
  I don't know how common it is anymore, but back in the 1990s it was completely possible to use a student loan to get room and board and then cancel your room and board in the first couple days of school and get a big fat check. A fair number of people did this just because off campus housing and food were cheaper. I wonder if students can still easily do this.

IanCal 9y ago

> Add to this the fact that Universities receive no penalty from the market for continually increasing their prices. This article is about universities in the UK, and they cannot arbitrarily decide to increase their tuition fees for home student. > Because student loans are available to service ever increasing tuition costs For many, a drop in tuition fees would never actually be noticed. For those that start to notice, it'll only make a difference when they're much older. This is because student loans in the UK are income contingent, and forgiven after a set period. Most people will not pay off their loans before they are forgiven.

matt_s 9y ago

Have you read the actual article that for Parkinson's Law? In there you will find the oft-overlooked Law of Multiplication of Subordinates. The findings were based on the expansion of Admiralty in Great Britain after WWI. TL;DR: administration kept expanding even though the number of ships was reduced to 1/3 the size. This is much the same problem identified in the article, what you have said and what I have seen in corporate america as well. Too much administration, some of it required via legislation/regulatory matters. http://www.economist.com/node/14116121 http://www.economist.com/node/14116121

TimPC 9y ago

The article recognizes this and mentions specific regulations to cut in order to reduce administration (at least for the UK).

murph-almighty 9y ago

I feel like University of Phoenix, a for-profit university, is a bit unfair of a comparison to a not-for-profit university. Especially when a significant portion of for-profit universities aren't properly accredited, and actually represent a very significant portion of student loan obligations (see https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/09/the-failure-of-for-profit-colleges/405301/ https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/09/the-fai...).

rpiguy 9y ago
The point is that alternatives are appearing that provide education without the mini-city like atmosphere and cost of the traditional university. You are absolutely correct though, many for profit alternatives are not accredited and some of them can be quite predatory. I believe the poster was referencing University of Phoenix as pure "education service." They are accredited. A lot of people who have been to university would probably defend the mini-city model as integral to the experience. More pragmatic folks might argue otherwise.

bpyne 9y ago

Paragraph 2 is worth more discussion. I work for a moderate-sized private university in an urban environment. Beyond the startup and labor (staffing, administration) costs of the amenities, they require real estate as well. While suburban/rural universities may have options for constructing new buildings, we have to rely on purchasing real estate in a fluctuating market. Then we have to re-purpose it, often bringing it up to modern health codes. This is expensive to undertake. A ramification of purchasing real estate, for amenities in current demand, is that we can get stuck with expensive real estate when enrollments are down and, correspondingly, the amenities in those buildings are less used. The amenities come due to demand. But, they're costly. When amenity use is down, we're kind of stuck with those costs unless we can unload or re-purpose the real estate. [EDIT: Added "costs" in sentence 3 paragraph 1.]

autotune 9y ago

> and students pretty much need to go to college to succeed in the 21st century I do not agree with this. There are plenty of trades out there that can earn you a great salary without a degree. If you want a white collar job and are willing to put in the time and effort, there are plenty of ways to connect with employed nerds and show that you are capable of being an employed nerd as well via open source projects. NOBODY sane on github is going to ask for a degree before contributing to open source, and if you do it consistently would likely be as impressive as on-the-job experience.

tmalsburg2 9y ago

I'm a researcher at a university in Germany. Here in Germany, the administration has also been growing for many years and it's growing much faster than research staff. I have never heard anyone say that the administration is staffed with redundant workers. Everyone agrees that the admin people are totally overloaded. The primary reason is, as you say, regulations. However, my impression is that a lot of these regulations are home-made and completely unnecessary. Some people in admin (clearly not everyone) seem to have a tendency to make up new regulations that serve no real purpose apart from securing their own jobs. In a perverse sense, this may actually be rational behavior, so it is not surprising that this is happening. However, this means that poor management is in fact to blame, because what is poor management if not prioritizing your own personal agenda over the good of the institution you're working for. Disclaimer: My experience with (several) German institutions may obviously not translate to US universities. I have worked for one US university (UC system) and I have only (well, mostly) good things to say about the administration there.