Ratio of tenured staff only tells /part/ of the story. The problem with this ratio is that there's a massive oversupply of people to do the work (new-minted phd

Ratio of tenured staff only tells /part/ of the story. The problem with this ratio is that there's a massive oversupply of people to do the work (new-minted phds) compared to the number of available prof positions. ie, Supply >> Demand, which has made it trivial to convert what would have been tenured jobs a couple generations ago into rotating assistant prof positions. It may be that the increasing admin staff has taken advantage of this situation more ruthlessly than good communist professor admins would have, but "Supply >> Demand" and a consequent race to the bottom in the labor market is the major factor in this part of the 'why academia sucks' story. Meanwhile, states have pulled back or failed to increase university funding, and the universities fill the gap with greater tuition. Here's the story+graph for the University of California system: https://accountability.universityofcalifornia.edu/2015/chapters/chapter-12.html#12.3.2 https://accountability.universityofcalifornia.edu/2015/chapt... This is the GP's point, and completely spot on. It is also true that there are more MBA's in the admin buildings and that they suck, and are likely paid more than they should be. But while I think it /is/ a factor, it's likely not the biggest bottleneck.