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In USA where private universities can choose to spend their dollars on admin, sure, go ahead. But this is a much bigger issue in publicly funded systems. Here i

In USA where private universities can choose to spend their dollars on admin, sure, go ahead. But this is a much bigger issue in publicly funded systems. Here in Canada, the trend described in this article has been going on for decades. Not mentioned is how each vice president, provost, chancillor, department head, co-head, chair-of-such and such all have their own office support staff, admin assistants etc. There is also no incentive to reduce such administrative overhead -- indeed, (federal) granting agencies ask for more and more paperwork for due dilliagence, grant management, etc. necessitating ever more support staff.

wittycardio 4y ago
US universities are no better. It's not a public / private issue. It's classic rent seeking behavior.
cycomanic 4y ago
One should acknowledge that part of the reason for the increasing amount of paperwork is that many organisations campaign the government for "outcome based tax spending" which requires that for every tax dollar spend another dollar has to be spend on the "monitoring that it has been spend appropriately".
- beezlebroxxxxxx 4y ago
  I think another issue is a broader philosophical shift in how people view higher education. It's no longer a higher level of education really; it's positioned as a skills certifier, accreditor, and early career trainer. The role of education in the classical liberal sense as humanistic enlightenment is no longer the focus of higher-ed. Research is secondary to pushing students through degree calendars as fast as possible. They're more like private hotels of late-teens to twenty year olds before they enter the workforce. Most students are not viewed as adults, but as pseudo adolescents under the institutions care, so everything but the core education services inflate to service and meets those demands.
rahimnathwani 4y ago
"In USA where private universities can choose to spend their dollars on admin, sure, go ahead." Private universities in the US; - receive billions of dollars in direct federal funding - benefit from government interference in the student loan market (which allows universities to charge more than they would without this interference) - don't contribute the same federal taxes as other businesses with similar size and margins Given how much we (the rest of society) contribute to their functioning, why shouldn't we care if they waste a lot of what we give them?

wittycardio 4y ago

US universities are no better. It's not a public / private issue. It's classic rent seeking behavior.

cycomanic 4y ago

One should acknowledge that part of the reason for the increasing amount of paperwork is that many organisations campaign the government for "outcome based tax spending" which requires that for every tax dollar spend another dollar has to be spend on the "monitoring that it has been spend appropriately".

beezlebroxxxxxx 4y ago
I think another issue is a broader philosophical shift in how people view higher education. It's no longer a higher level of education really; it's positioned as a skills certifier, accreditor, and early career trainer. The role of education in the classical liberal sense as humanistic enlightenment is no longer the focus of higher-ed. Research is secondary to pushing students through degree calendars as fast as possible. They're more like private hotels of late-teens to twenty year olds before they enter the workforce. Most students are not viewed as adults, but as pseudo adolescents under the institutions care, so everything but the core education services inflate to service and meets those demands.

rahimnathwani 4y ago

"In USA where private universities can choose to spend their dollars on admin, sure, go ahead." Private universities in the US; - receive billions of dollars in direct federal funding - benefit from government interference in the student loan market (which allows universities to charge more than they would without this interference) - don't contribute the same federal taxes as other businesses with similar size and margins Given how much we (the rest of society) contribute to their functioning, why shouldn't we care if they waste a lot of what we give them?