<p>"Still, the findings raise concerns about administrative bloat, and the increasing focus on the social and residential nature of college life, as opposed to academics."</p>
<p>A few examples:</p>
<p>-Check the UMass-Amherst staff directory and you will find dozens of institutes, centers for, offices for the transition of… Every noble idea has its own administrative staff. </p>
<p>+Rumor has it that Princeton increased its freshman class by 200 a couple of years ago because its student/faculty ratio was reaching a very strange point; there were so many special hire “academics” associated with research or Institutes that the students were becoming an afterthought. Hats off to Princeton for refocusing on education of students.</p>
<p>-The Cambridge joke is that Harvard should be renamed Harvard Consulting and Real Estate LLC. Student education has shrunk to a tiny part of its activities.</p>
<p>+Hats off to Northfield Mount Hermon prep school. They announced in February that senior instructors who had taken on administrative roles would be moving back to have larger classroom presence.</p>
<p>Stuff like this makes me really mad. I know at GT recently the decision was made to no longer lock in tuition rates for matriculating freshmen for 4 years and yet I am aware of <em>no</em> cutbacks in administrative spending. It really drives away OOS talent from public schools, whose selling point is the fact that they’re cheap.</p>
<p>I’m just sick and tired of all these communication majors creating such superfluous roles - or even entire offices - for themselves at an engineering university such as <a href=“http://www.diversity.gatech.edu/[/url]”>http://www.diversity.gatech.edu/</a></p>
<p>Many of these are federally mandated positions so hold your fire. You wouldn’t need a boat load of compliance folks to ensure that contracts are being adminstered correctly, or that animal research is being conducted according to protocols, or that EEOC guidelines are being followed when promoting or laying off, if the regulations didn’t exist in the first place.</p>
<p>And don’t forget our litigious society. The first time I called the maintenance staff at my kids college to alert them to a hazardous substance which had been left in a hallway on move-in day (I was being helpful, or so I thought- a janitor had left an open container of a flammable solvent and would want to retrieve it before someone spilled it, breathed it, or lit it on fire) and got a deluge of calls from the U’s “Office of Risk Management” I thought I had died and landed in a Kafka novel.</p>
<p>No, I hadn’t retained counsel. No, I hadn’t been injured. No, I hadn’t touched the container, although I couldn’t attest to whether any of the 500 people who had walked in and out of that hallway on that day had touched the container. Yes, I was a parent of a student. Try explaining to an “office of risk management” that all you tried to do was to get a janitor to remove the bucket.</p>
<p>I don’t blame the U. Some bozo sues- $20 million later everyone concludes that it’s cheaper to keep a couple of lawyers on the payroll, as ridiculous as it seems. One kid commits suicide- it’s cheaper to hire 5 psychiatrists and have a physician in the clinic 24/7 than to risk the lawsuit that comes from having an RN doing triage with a psychotic or depressed teenager who won’t go to an ER.</p>
<p>Colleges reflect our regulated, litigious, consumer-demanding society, they didn’t create it.</p>
<p>Here at SEMO they are starting a “Southeast Missouri State University Autism Center for Diagnosis & Treatment.” With two fairly major hospitals in the city which have some sort of program along with I think a few other groups who do that type of work, is it really necessary? How is that helping SEMO students? It’s NOT… it is an outside program that won’t even be located on campus. Good to see my money is going outside the university pretty much. </p>
<p>Yet another reason college prices keep going up and up and up… please return to education…</p>
<p>It’s hard for me to imagine that research and/or diagnostic centers are being run using tuition money. Most likely, they are considered to be a source of cash flow for the university in the form of grant money (that brings with it administrative overhead funds to help cover salaries of all those grant managers and compliance folks) and insurance reimbursements for patient-related services. I know that while SUNY system has recently raised tuition, the state is not giving any of the increase back to the universities. Instead, it is using the money to cover gaps in the state budget. Additionally, the university system takes a bite out of all grant money (overhead portion) obtained by individual researchers before the money gets to the specific campus.</p>
<p>^^^ “I know at GT recently the decision was made to no longer lock in tuition rates for matriculating freshmen for 4 years and yet I am aware of <em>no</em> cutbacks in administrative spending.”</p>
<p>Wrong. The University System of Georgia has cut all its institutions’ budgets by 12% for next year, warned of additional upcoming cuts, and shifted a larger proportion of health insurance costs from the System to its employees. The University System’s four-year fixed tuition program has only been in place for three years and is being phased out, but those in the fixed-rate program will continue to have their rates held steady for four years - not a Georgia Tech decision; these matters get decided by the Board of Regents for all 35 institutions in the System. At Georgia Tech, virtually all in-state students enter under the HOPE Grant, by which the state lottery covers their tuition and much of their fees and book costs as long as they maintain a 3.0, so whether they ever pay tuition at all is basically up to them.</p>
<p>Don’t get me started on this. There are now THREE layers of administration between DW and the Dean of Sciences … and TWO MORE between that Dean and the University President! Seven layers of administration for 8,000 students?</p>
<p>I can tell you that most of the campuses with which I frequently interact have added significantly to their Counseling staffs over the last 10-15 years. During that time, the pharmaceutical industry has made it feasible for many students (hundreds of thousands? millions?) with mental health issues to manage their symptoms to the level required in order to attend college - 20 years ago, individuals with their illnesses weren’t in college at all. College counselors who a generation ago were dealing with relationship breakup and time management concerns are now knee deep in serious psychiatric issues and the ramifications of students going on and off medications, and the mushrooming caseload shows no signs of tapering off. </p>
<p>The times and society continue to change. The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 created a whole new discipline of federally-required student service administrator. Students requesting accommodations due to their disabilities must be screened and referred for diagnosis (or documentation of the diagnosis must be secured), and a campus body assesses the campus accommodations necessary to meet the needs of the disability, then works with instructors and other staff to provide them. The interactions are long-term, not one-time, because the accommodations required may differ for each course or activity.</p>
<p>To be sure, there is some degree of keeping up with the Joneses when it comes to the growth of college staff, but there’s a significant degree of keeping up with the times.</p>
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<p>Well yes I did grossly oversimplify so that I could squeeze out my daily vitriolic statement before I went to class. Unfortunately, the Board of Regents is screwing the out of state kids big time with this decision for no other reason than they can and it’s the path of least resistance.</p>
<p>^^^ “the Board of Regents is screwing the out of state kids big time with this decision for no other reason than they can and it’s the path of least resistance.”</p>
<p>Again, you’re jumping to a conclusion and assigning bad intent where there really isn’t any. The State of Georgia’s revenues are so far down that painful decisions are inevitable. Every state takes care of its own taxpayers and charges OOS students a much higher rate in order to give its citizens a return on their taxes. But Georgia Tech, at $24,000 tuition OOS for next year, is the same cost as Purdue and Clemson OOS - two schools with noted Engineering programs that are not nearly as highly-ranked as Tech’s.</p>
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<p>You mean increasing the tuition rate at twice or better the rate of inflation isn’t “bad intent”? I’ve actually seen evidence that there is deflation this year and colleges STILL have the gall to increase fees. Where is all the money from better times? The families of students attending a school that derives less than 10% of its income from tuition should not have been used to balance unsustainable budget spending.</p>
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<p>So because everyone else is holding their undergrads upside down and shaking them for change then it’s ok if Tech does it too? I have no qualms with charging a higher rate to OOS students, but the gap between OOS and in-state tuition has grown tremendously in absolute terms.</p>
<p>And for clarification I’m not blaming Tech in particular as there are things out of its control (like tuition), but it is just an unfortunate situation for OOS kids. I am unaffected by tuition, but it still reminds me why I never attended Tech for undergrad.</p>
<p>What is worse is that many of the these positions are paid much more then the teaching faculty. The long term planning officer makes 1 1/2 times a full professor in the humanities because she has a “professional” degree, unlike a mere Phd. One thing most people don’t realize is that faculty salaries, at most colleges, for the teaching faculty, has not grown at the same rate as tuition or the rate of salary growth for the administration.</p>
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<p>Actually, I think that is dependent on your major and, interestingly, also on whether you’re a continuing faculty or new faculty. For some disciplines, the salaries for new faculty have absolutely exploded to the point of salary inversion: new assistant professors often times actually earn more than do tenured profs in their own department. That’s right - more.</p>
<p>Take the University of North Carolina, the salaries of which are publicly available. Ashraf Jaffer and Stephen Stubben are recently hired assistant professors. Each of them is paid more than is Edward Blocher, who is in the same department and who is a tenured full professor. And not just by a little bit, * but by about 2x*. Jaffer and Stubben are paid about $175k each, whereas Blocher is paid only $90k. Heck, Jaffer hasn’t even finished her PhD yet, and yet UNC is still paying her double what a full prof is making. {Again, I am not violating anybody’s privacy as these salary figures are all publicly available.}</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.kenan-flagler.unc.edu/Faculty/search/detail.cfm?person_id=858[/url]”>http://www.kenan-flagler.unc.edu/Faculty/search/detail.cfm?person_id=858</a></p>
<p><a href=“http://www.kenan-flagler.unc.edu/Faculty/search/detail.cfm?person_id=52[/url]”>http://www.kenan-flagler.unc.edu/Faculty/search/detail.cfm?person_id=52</a></p>
<p>blossom – Wonderful post #4!</p>
<p>I work at one of these Research Institutes at my university, and I can say that it almost fully funded by the grant money researchers receive–almost, if not, all of costs are paid out of grants. The university may chip in a bit in some areas, but as far as I can tell, it’s not much. Plus, the Research Institute provides jobs/funding for a lot grad students (and the occasional undergraduate, like me).</p>
<p>“What is worse is that many of the these positions are paid much more then the teaching faculty.”</p>
<p>Whoo! Not at my university, they’re not. I’m an administrator with a professional degree (the same one as the professors in my branch). The profs make twice what we make. I’m not complaining, but the situation you describe is not universal.</p>
<p>Health care costs of everyone at a university, from the janitor and office secretaries to the professors and administrators are skyrocketing. The universities offer health care insurance to incoming freshmen, many of whom avail themselves of it because their parents have lost health care coverage at work, lost their jobs or simply never had it to begin with. </p>
<p>But yes, many professorships are overpaid. Many administration jobs are overpaid. We are in fact and over paid society, though few would admit it, especially for their own jobs or profession. Its one of the pandemic reasons we have economic collapse. We have too high labor costs, driving jobs overseas and the overseas markets depend on the US consumer to buy their goods. Its a vicious circle. </p>
<p>As for lawyers causing frivilous lawsuits and an over-reacting administration…well…yes…that is a serious problem in our society as well. People view lawsuits as lottery tickets and sometimes they hit the jackpot. Which of course people should consider before sending their kids off to college in a family car on the family insurance policy. Your little darling may get drunk, go driving and cause a wreck that brings about financial ruin to your family.</p>
<p>Is there bloat in colleges? You betcha. And most of it is in sports. Too many ridiculous “athletic scholarships” (which have to be administered under federal and state guidelines) in everything from softball to fencing to swimming to pistol shooting to you name it. And that has an effect (adverse in my view) on admissions statistics. </p>
<p>As for OOS tuition whiners: you dont have a right to attend any college. Its a privilege. If you are focused entirely upon the cost, then go to a state flagship school. Who cares if Clemson is lower ranked than GT in some insidious (and flawed) USNWR engineering school ranking system? NOBODY. So if you are from in-state SC, go to Clemson and laugh all the way to the bank, as your education will be just as good as it is at GT. (Nothing wrong with GT, mind you. I’m just saying, if money is an issue, then dont go out of state and complain about it.)</p>
<p>I send my kid out of state and its killing us. We arent complaining. She could go instate to the state flagship (a top 10 school) and do it a lot cheaper. But we support her decision and she is thriving and getting “two educations at the same time for the price of one.” One is book smarts. The other is street smarts. </p>
<p>Have a nice day.</p>
<p>Sakky, they used to call it salary compression, now it’s salary inversion. Good time to be a new business prof. You might actually make more than the students will when they graduate. When I graduated back in the old days I started at a higher salary than the head of my dept was making. Made me kind of sad but he loved the job he had.</p>