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To be fair, this article is by a Harvard student, in a Harvard paper. It's very much relevant in that context. But fair to ask why everyone on HN (including th

To be fair, this article is by a Harvard student, in a Harvard paper. It's very much relevant in that context. But fair to ask why everyone on HN (including the two of us...) are reading and talking about it.

paxys 4y ago
Yes I don't have a problem with the article itself, but more with everyone here sitting and debating it like they have any skin in the game. Harvard is a century+ older than the USA and has a larger endowment than the reserves of most countries. They will be just fine. Spend that energy towards your local public school instead and you may see some actual positive change.
DiggyJohnson 4y ago
Because it's emblematic of an issue (or reality, if you prefer) that is happening at many universities.
- secabeen 4y ago
  Perhaps, but co-mingling a perceived problem at Harvard (high nameplate tuition that few students actually pay) with an actual problem at public universities (disinvestment in higher education by state legislatures causing tuition increases) doesn't help the debate at all, it just muddies the waters. Even this article doesn't actually address the issue directly; it complains about excessive administrators, then tries to support that complaint with tuition data. Tuition is not the primary funding source of university administrators. Federal research dollars pay for a significant fraction (if not a majority) of them. The data that the author should be leveraging is expenditure data, not income data. This is the best aggregate dataset I have on university expenditures, showing a modest increase in spending on a per-student basis: https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d20/tables/dt20_334.10.asp https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d20/tables/dt20_334.10.a...
- NovemberWhiskey 4y ago
  But it's not - because, as is pointed out elsewhere, the amount that Harvard chooses to spend on its administration doesn't have much impact on how much it costs most students to attend, nor does it appear to compete out faculty or other funding. To that extent, Harvard is precisely non-emblematic of the issue.
  - DiggyJohnson 4y ago
    The bloat of administration positions in endemic at the Ivy’s as well as state run institutions. That’s the connection as I see it.
  - melling 4y ago
    Why has college cost far outpaced inflation for the past 40 years? It’s now at the point where people want debt forgiveness. Something is definitely wrong. And this isn’t the first time administrative costs has come up. https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/administrative-bloat-in-higher-education-is-not-a-myth/amp/ https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/administrative-bloat-i...
bombcar 4y ago
Because one of the Prime Truths of HackerNews is "why does X have so many people? They could easily do it with Y instead".

paxys 4y ago

Yes I don't have a problem with the article itself, but more with everyone here sitting and debating it like they have any skin in the game. Harvard is a century+ older than the USA and has a larger endowment than the reserves of most countries. They will be just fine. Spend that energy towards your local public school instead and you may see some actual positive change.

DiggyJohnson 4y ago

Because it's emblematic of an issue (or reality, if you prefer) that is happening at many universities.

secabeen 4y ago
Perhaps, but co-mingling a perceived problem at Harvard (high nameplate tuition that few students actually pay) with an actual problem at public universities (disinvestment in higher education by state legislatures causing tuition increases) doesn't help the debate at all, it just muddies the waters. Even this article doesn't actually address the issue directly; it complains about excessive administrators, then tries to support that complaint with tuition data. Tuition is not the primary funding source of university administrators. Federal research dollars pay for a significant fraction (if not a majority) of them. The data that the author should be leveraging is expenditure data, not income data. This is the best aggregate dataset I have on university expenditures, showing a modest increase in spending on a per-student basis: https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d20/tables/dt20_334.10.asp https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d20/tables/dt20_334.10.a...
NovemberWhiskey 4y ago
But it's not - because, as is pointed out elsewhere, the amount that Harvard chooses to spend on its administration doesn't have much impact on how much it costs most students to attend, nor does it appear to compete out faculty or other funding. To that extent, Harvard is precisely non-emblematic of the issue.
- DiggyJohnson 4y ago
  The bloat of administration positions in endemic at the Ivy’s as well as state run institutions. That’s the connection as I see it.
- melling 4y ago
  Why has college cost far outpaced inflation for the past 40 years? It’s now at the point where people want debt forgiveness. Something is definitely wrong. And this isn’t the first time administrative costs has come up. https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/administrative-bloat-in-higher-education-is-not-a-myth/amp/ https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/administrative-bloat-i...

bombcar 4y ago

Because one of the Prime Truths of HackerNews is "why does X have so many people? They could easily do it with Y instead".