For what it's worth, I'm sure that, if you asked every direct report why they created a position below them, they'd give a perfectly cromulent justification. Th

For what it's worth, I'm sure that, if you asked every direct report why they created a position below them, they'd give a perfectly cromulent justification. That doesn't explain away the inefficiencies of college in general, but I do think there are root causes of that that are worth going in depth into. For example, presidents have large offices because they would say they hold many hats these days, more than they did in the past when higher ed institutions recieved more state money: fundraising on the road and glad-handing big donors for that personal touch, going to policymakers for more money and for advocacy, working with big donors to plan large investments that open entire research units, dealing with internal governance of the college and with faculty. No one person can handle all of these responsibilities. Or you could look at student services: some administrator saw a need to support certain student populations to increase retention (more college completion = more alumni $$$$, more good press about alums), so you now have people that create programming to engage first-generation college students, Black students, students with disabilities. That's a huge set of communities to engage (especially in large institutions), and no one person can do all of that as well. The question is: are colleges doing work that should rightly be done elsewhere, and why isn't society making that happen? For example, colleges are developing integrated safety nets and free services (people who disburse emergency funds, mental health care, people that help students navigate this internal system, for example), because American society and government doesn't offer such an integrated system, at least to the standards that colleges are now aspiring to.