Mike’s Musings: Number of college administrators alarming

Many of you have read my rants concerning higher education. I believe the cost is outrageous and it certainly far outweighs the benefit most students receive.
One of the reasons costs have risen extensively over the past decade is that universities and colleges have added hundreds of new administrators to their payroll. Thus they have determined more administrators are needed despite college enrollment decreasing.
I can remember when I was in college, we had three administrators- a president, a provost and admissions director. Granted it was a small college, 1400 students, but compared to today’s world we were beyond frugal.
College enrollment is decreasing, you didn’t know. Yes, it is predicted, according to Forbes, that enrollment will fall by 15 percent in the next four years. That likely means several schools will close their doors.
But in the meantime, many schools have determined they need more administrators. For what, it is a mystery. Between 1976 and 2018, full-time administrators and other professionals employed by institutions of higher learning increased by 164% and 452% respectively. Compare that to increased student enrollment of 78% and increased faculty positions by 92%.
Essentially that means faculty and student enrollment is on par, but administrative hirings have increased substantially. Some schools reportedly have more full-time administrators than students. To name a few one only must look at Duke, University of California at San Diego and the California Institute of Technology. Each has several more administrators than actual full-time students on campus.
Looking at individual schools the numbers are even more striking. A recent report showed the top 50 schools have 1 faculty per 11 students whereas the same report shows the same institutions have 1 non-faculty per 4 students. I’m sorry those statistics should be switched. No way should there be more administrators than faculty.
I can’t imagine what purpose these administrators serve and why in the world would there be more of them than students. The aforementioned numbers don’t even include the myriad of consultants and contractors that are hired by admissions offices to promote the schools and boost enrollments.
Forbes claims the explosion of administrators has occurred because of more government regulations and the natural tendency of administrators to solve most problems by hiring more administrators.
They also claim the explosion would never have happened without the growing availability of federal aid and student loans. Instead of pouring the additional monies in to more programs for students or adding more professors, institutions decided the best route was to hire more and more administrators.
Forbes concluded, “With no market or regulatory forces to contain the reckless spending behavior of colleges and universities, school presidents have focused on fundraising, not good management.”
It will be interesting to see with the decreasing enrollment projections at most schools of higher learning (we are already experiencing it in Michigan} how they will handle the administrative bloat. Will they begin to lay them off, or will they risk closing their doors? I don’t want to see anyone lose their job, but in this environment, something has to give.