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States cut funding to public schools, costs rise to accommodate those cuts which spills over into every part of the education market. At the same time schools i

States cut funding to public schools, costs rise to accommodate those cuts which spills over into every part of the education market. At the same time schools increase spending on non-academic upgrades to appeal to prospective students bringing higher costs (and more administrators). I think that may account for the bulk of the increases.

kxyvr 4y ago
To add to this, Pew has an article that talks about a variety of topics including funding of higher education: https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/issue-briefs/2019/10/two-decades-of-change-in-federal-and-state-higher-education-funding https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/issue-bri... If you look at Figure 4, within the last 10 years, and for the first time ever, the amount of federal money flowing into state universities exceeded state money. There are all sorts of consequences for this. Mostly, I mention this to echo that state contributions to higher education have gone down consistently and the editorial's assertion that the high cost of a university education can be reduced to a bloated administration is a simplified argument of a complex issue that is likely made in bad faith.
tomohawk 4y ago
Can you provide any evidence of these cuts? > In 2018, the United States spent $14,400 per full-time-equivalent (FTE) student on elementary and secondary education, which was 34 percent higher than the average of Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) member countries of $10,800 (in constant 2020 U.S. dollars). At the postsecondary level, the United States spent $35,100 per FTE student, which was double the average of OECD countries ($17,600). https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator/cmd https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator/cmd How much spending is enough?
- Nihilartikel 4y ago
  A data point of USA exceptionality is that a significant portion of such money that pays employees must necessarily be allocated to the parasitic healthcare complex.
google234123 4y ago
How does increasing admin size by something like 10x make sense when states cut funding to public schools?
- slg 4y ago
  I can see that happening in a few steps: 1. State cuts funding 2. Public schools need to raise tuition to make up the difference 3. The gap in price between public and private school decreases 4. Schools need to improve their product to attract students in order to make up for this lost savings 5. Schools work to improve amenities and add ancillary services (and this can now become cyclical when other schools improve, sending you back to step 4 again) 6. The administration bloats as they hire people to work in these new areas. Basically one person's "administrative bloat" is another persons "investment in attracting students". I think really the only difference between the two is whether the return on investment is positive or not.
  - mattkrause 4y ago
    On top of that, it seems like more schools are trying to do/increase graduate education and research. In principle, this helps two ways. It increases the prestige of the school, thereby attracting students. More directly, it brings in new revenue streams, both from tuition (paid directly or via federal training grants) and via overhead on research grants. However, it requires more--and fundamentally different--kinds of admin.

kxyvr 4y ago

To add to this, Pew has an article that talks about a variety of topics including funding of higher education: https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/issue-briefs/2019/10/two-decades-of-change-in-federal-and-state-higher-education-funding https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/issue-bri... If you look at Figure 4, within the last 10 years, and for the first time ever, the amount of federal money flowing into state universities exceeded state money. There are all sorts of consequences for this. Mostly, I mention this to echo that state contributions to higher education have gone down consistently and the editorial's assertion that the high cost of a university education can be reduced to a bloated administration is a simplified argument of a complex issue that is likely made in bad faith.

tomohawk 4y ago

Can you provide any evidence of these cuts? > In 2018, the United States spent $14,400 per full-time-equivalent (FTE) student on elementary and secondary education, which was 34 percent higher than the average of Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) member countries of $10,800 (in constant 2020 U.S. dollars). At the postsecondary level, the United States spent $35,100 per FTE student, which was double the average of OECD countries ($17,600). https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator/cmd https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator/cmd How much spending is enough?

Nihilartikel 4y ago
A data point of USA exceptionality is that a significant portion of such money that pays employees must necessarily be allocated to the parasitic healthcare complex.

google234123 4y ago

How does increasing admin size by something like 10x make sense when states cut funding to public schools?

slg 4y ago
I can see that happening in a few steps: 1. State cuts funding 2. Public schools need to raise tuition to make up the difference 3. The gap in price between public and private school decreases 4. Schools need to improve their product to attract students in order to make up for this lost savings 5. Schools work to improve amenities and add ancillary services (and this can now become cyclical when other schools improve, sending you back to step 4 again) 6. The administration bloats as they hire people to work in these new areas. Basically one person's "administrative bloat" is another persons "investment in attracting students". I think really the only difference between the two is whether the return on investment is positive or not.
- mattkrause 4y ago
  On top of that, it seems like more schools are trying to do/increase graduate education and research. In principle, this helps two ways. It increases the prestige of the school, thereby attracting students. More directly, it brings in new revenue streams, both from tuition (paid directly or via federal training grants) and via overhead on research grants. However, it requires more--and fundamentally different--kinds of admin.