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> encourage universities to grow fatter In a typical state school, where's most of the fat accumulating? What could be cut significantly without affecting the

> encourage universities to grow fatter In a typical state school, where's most of the fat accumulating? What could be cut significantly without affecting the quality of education?

lokar 9mo ago
I'm not an expert, but a lot has been written on this. Some areas: - more and more administrative staff and "middle management". The assistant to the assistant vice chancellor for elm trees. - Building and running very expensive science research operations. These may well be worthwhile efforts, but conflating them with undergraduate educations is a problem. - more and more student amenities. Fancy dorms, student centers, rec centers, etc - competitive athletics A big part of this, is that they need to attract students, ideally ones who can pay or borrow. And students are putting a lot of weight on the research programs (they impact public ratings), fancy dorms, rec centers, football teams, etc. And they are spending loan money, and don't seem to fully grasp the economics. But even if they did, the highest rated schools are the ones spending all this money, and thus charging more, it's a cycle. And this propagates down to mid- and lower tier schools. And then people in the leadership ranks of these schools are in part evaluated on how the ranking of their school changes. So if you can go from spot 150 to 140 by raising fees to build stuff you don't really need to teach (but improve your ranking), that is good for you.
- lokar 9mo ago
  Also, I should mention: highly competitive employers do filter based on school ranking, both in recruiting (acting looking for people), but also in hiring. For example, requiring extra approvals to hire someone who did not attend a top N school for their major. So it can be rational for a student to stretch hard to get into a higher ranked school. (I know this from being personally involved in this at more then one company)

> encourage universities to grow fatter In a typical state school, where's most of the fat accumulating? What could be cut significantly without affecting the quality of education?

lokar 9mo ago

I'm not an expert, but a lot has been written on this. Some areas: - more and more administrative staff and "middle management". The assistant to the assistant vice chancellor for elm trees. - Building and running very expensive science research operations. These may well be worthwhile efforts, but conflating them with undergraduate educations is a problem. - more and more student amenities. Fancy dorms, student centers, rec centers, etc - competitive athletics A big part of this, is that they need to attract students, ideally ones who can pay or borrow. And students are putting a lot of weight on the research programs (they impact public ratings), fancy dorms, rec centers, football teams, etc. And they are spending loan money, and don't seem to fully grasp the economics. But even if they did, the highest rated schools are the ones spending all this money, and thus charging more, it's a cycle. And this propagates down to mid- and lower tier schools. And then people in the leadership ranks of these schools are in part evaluated on how the ranking of their school changes. So if you can go from spot 150 to 140 by raising fees to build stuff you don't really need to teach (but improve your ranking), that is good for you.

lokar 9mo ago
Also, I should mention: highly competitive employers do filter based on school ranking, both in recruiting (acting looking for people), but also in hiring. For example, requiring extra approvals to hire someone who did not attend a top N school for their major. So it can be rational for a student to stretch hard to get into a higher ranked school. (I know this from being personally involved in this at more then one company)