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> It's not showing up in huge increases in faculty salaries, or administrative costs. Not in faculty salaries, but often in faculty headcount. Lots of college

> It's not showing up in huge increases in faculty salaries, or administrative costs. Not in faculty salaries, but often in faculty headcount. Lots of colleges and universities have added a lot of faculty while keeping student headcount constant. Mostly because they can't fire their tenured humanities faculty but need to hire people who can prepare students for something other than the Barista life. IMO: tenure should be used very sparingly and should be viewed as part of a competitive compensation package. E.g., if the CS PhDs you want to recruit all have $300K offers in industry and the best you can do is $70K-$80K even with salary inversion, then you absolutely do need to offer tenure. It's part of the comp package and you simply will not recruit good people without offsetting such significant pay gaps. But tenure for humanities borders on fiduciary irresponsibility. The job market for humanities PhDs is such that you can hire truly top-tier candidates without committing to having another head in the Philosophy or English department 40+ years. The $50K three-year contract is a competitive offer in the humanities. No need for tenure. > Colleges are charging more to the median student, but are using a lot of it to subsidize less well-off students. Certainly some of that too. I expect this will be the leading cause through 2030.

Master_Odin 6y ago
Except it's not that the colleges are using this money to truly hire the amount of faculty they need for ballooning class sizes, rather just hire more administrators, some easily pulling down 250k+. Watching my school downsize during COVID of "non-essential" staff while the president took a very nominal cut of their 5mil compensation package is insulting.
secabeen 6y ago
> Not in faculty salaries, but often in faculty headcount. Lots of colleges and universities have added a lot of faculty while keeping student headcount constant. Do you have a citation for that? The message in the industry is that colleges have been reducing faculty headcounts, and relying on adjuncts to cover class loads, not that there are too many faculty. > tenure should be used very sparingly and should be viewed as part of a competitive compensation package. I don't think you're going to get very far with this argument in most universities, where faculty see themselves as part of the governance of the university. There's quite a bit of collective action between faculty, and I think even if you could get faculty in some departments without tenure, the STEM faculty would not want to create a two tiered system.
- throwawaygh 6y ago
  Reductions in faculty headcount are recent. As in, pretty much only this past year. I’m talking about the last 10 or 20 years. Replacing tenured with ad juncts or instructors is not a headcount reduction. There already is a two-tiered system. Ad juncts and instructors are treated and paid horribly. Stripping tenure but otherwise leaving positions unchanged is downright humane by comparison. Tbh, faculty governance is pretty dead at most places.

Master_Odin 6y ago

Except it's not that the colleges are using this money to truly hire the amount of faculty they need for ballooning class sizes, rather just hire more administrators, some easily pulling down 250k+. Watching my school downsize during COVID of "non-essential" staff while the president took a very nominal cut of their 5mil compensation package is insulting.

secabeen 6y ago

> Not in faculty salaries, but often in faculty headcount. Lots of colleges and universities have added a lot of faculty while keeping student headcount constant. Do you have a citation for that? The message in the industry is that colleges have been reducing faculty headcounts, and relying on adjuncts to cover class loads, not that there are too many faculty. > tenure should be used very sparingly and should be viewed as part of a competitive compensation package. I don't think you're going to get very far with this argument in most universities, where faculty see themselves as part of the governance of the university. There's quite a bit of collective action between faculty, and I think even if you could get faculty in some departments without tenure, the STEM faculty would not want to create a two tiered system.

throwawaygh 6y ago
Reductions in faculty headcount are recent. As in, pretty much only this past year. I’m talking about the last 10 or 20 years. Replacing tenured with ad juncts or instructors is not a headcount reduction. There already is a two-tiered system. Ad juncts and instructors are treated and paid horribly. Stripping tenure but otherwise leaving positions unchanged is downright humane by comparison. Tbh, faculty governance is pretty dead at most places.