Comment by runarberg
3 years ago
I’m sure there is data to be found, and I’m actually curious about it my self. I don’t know where to begin looking for it though. But I’m open to be proven wrong.
To be clear, I’m talking about the education system as a whole, not just prestige universities, but also community collages as well high schools and primary schools. Prestige universities like Stanford will always find funding to do what they want (e.g. from fossil fuel companies) this includes ballooning administrators playing the CV game, as well as keeping existing courses open while even opening new courses. Community collages and poorer school districts cannot afford to do all, and—it is my experience—they are way more likely to pick funding their administrators at the cost of education.
I get your point. The way I see this growth of admins is side effect of giving what people wanted which is "world-class amenities, world class education, more nutrition options, more security, more healthcare, more activities, more courses, more entertainment options, more electives, more everything" . Individually every single item looks eminently reasonable and in aggregate it can give reasonable cover to universities to have admins to support all of this.
I don’t know if you have any experience in this, but in community collages in my area students and faculty alike are raising protests and threatening strikes because they are precisely not getting what they want, which is for their courses to stay open and for their teachers to remain on staff. It is my guess that the only people getting what they want with the ballooning admins are the bosses (i.e. admins them selves; and stakeholders in the educational industry who get to sell their stuff to schools, e.g. security firms).