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> Perhaps the most salient example of this ever-expanding bureaucracy is Stanford's shiny new 35-acre campus in Redwood City, which houses only non-academic adm

> Perhaps the most salient example of this ever-expanding bureaucracy is Stanford's shiny new 35-acre campus in Redwood City, which houses only non-academic administrative staff Is this really a good example of administrative bureaucracy growing out of control? I mean, if you had to pick a group of people to move off your university campus due to space constraints, it seems like administrative staff would be the logical choice. Moving certain departments off-campus, or letting fewer students live on-campus would both be worse for the academic environment. In addition, Stanford has consistently ranked near the top of all universities in research output while also providing free tuition to any student whose family makes less than $150K per year. Doing this costs a lot of money. Where do they get that money from? Mostly donations and grants. It takes a lot of people to administer grants (which tend to come with lots of rules on how you account for the money) and to schmooze with donors, etc. But the end result -- funding high-quality research and providing a free education to thousands of students each year seems like a pretty good outcome.

cs702 7y ago
I couldn't tell you if it's "out of control" (your words), but it sure is a salient -- i.e., prominent, noticeable -- example of bureaucratic growth. Whether the "corporatization" of US high education will prove a good or a bad thing in the long run, it remains to be seen.
- secabeen 7y ago
  A big driver of the bureaucratic growth is the growth in federal funding, and the significant documentation requirements that the federal government puts on recipients of Grant Funding. (This is things like effort reporting, overhead allocations, purchase applicability and allocability, etc. You can read many of the specific details in OMB Circular A-110: https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Circular-110.pdf https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Circul...)
  - mattkrause 7y ago
    It's not federal funding per se; it's the requirements that come along with it, usually in the name of preventing 'fraud' or 'abuse'. I wholeheartedly believe you could spend a lot less on oversight, tolerate a small amount of wasteful spending, and come out far, far, far ahead. The flip side of this, however, is that some (usually Republican) congressman would be able to rant about how scientists are wasting your tax dollars. Nobody, certainly not the dean, wants to deal with that kind of negative publicity. And so, every order gets stamped and signed and countersigned, often with an eight-by-ten color glossy pictures with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one explaining the "business purpose" of the item. This still doesn't totally stop idiots from ranting about "Who buys video games and cocaine to monkeys?!" or "Why do shrimp need a treadmill?" However, it gives the university a little bit of cover--and since a lot of this work gets lumped in with other stuff, no one ever figures out how much time and money that wastes.

cs702 7y ago

I couldn't tell you if it's "out of control" (your words), but it sure is a salient -- i.e., prominent, noticeable -- example of bureaucratic growth. Whether the "corporatization" of US high education will prove a good or a bad thing in the long run, it remains to be seen.

secabeen 7y ago
A big driver of the bureaucratic growth is the growth in federal funding, and the significant documentation requirements that the federal government puts on recipients of Grant Funding. (This is things like effort reporting, overhead allocations, purchase applicability and allocability, etc. You can read many of the specific details in OMB Circular A-110: https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Circular-110.pdf https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Circul...)
- mattkrause 7y ago
  It's not federal funding per se; it's the requirements that come along with it, usually in the name of preventing 'fraud' or 'abuse'. I wholeheartedly believe you could spend a lot less on oversight, tolerate a small amount of wasteful spending, and come out far, far, far ahead. The flip side of this, however, is that some (usually Republican) congressman would be able to rant about how scientists are wasting your tax dollars. Nobody, certainly not the dean, wants to deal with that kind of negative publicity. And so, every order gets stamped and signed and countersigned, often with an eight-by-ten color glossy pictures with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one explaining the "business purpose" of the item. This still doesn't totally stop idiots from ranting about "Who buys video games and cocaine to monkeys?!" or "Why do shrimp need a treadmill?" However, it gives the university a little bit of cover--and since a lot of this work gets lumped in with other stuff, no one ever figures out how much time and money that wastes.