A rather lengthy and detailed survey of business officers at colleges and universities from Insidehigher Ed:
Colleges and universities should hire more administrators to work on the problem.
Bad @simba9 bad – and funny as all get out,.
@simba9 And don’t forget to budget another $20M for the student center and build a new dorm with all single-person, suite-style rooms.
And the fitness center with the climbing wall!!!
and safe spaces for snowflakes.
What a surprise(sarcasm) that people that work in the biz office don’t see cutting staff in the biz office as one option.
Maybe cutting the administrative staff by 80% would be a start. Next stop operating 10am-3pm 4 days a week, you might get a few more students interested.
The country club campuses are only part of the problem (and keep in mind it’s not just building those facilities but maintaining and servicing them that costs and costs). Another one is the impact of regulations by state and federal governments. There are offices not just for admissions and financial aid but also for intellectual integrity, human subjects research, vertebrate animal research, OSHA (and state versions of them), all kinds of special subpopulations of students (race-ethnicity, gender, physical disabilities, etc.). There are administrative and legal staffs to deal with contracts and grants as well as intellectual property. With the computer revolution over the last 50+ years, the infrastructures of colleges have changed enormously, and technology costs have shot up.
Beyond these driving elements are the fact that to manage all this there are deans for this and that, their assistants and assistants-to, etc.
From my experience in large universities, most everybody works hard. But a lot of what they have to do has been added to the core functions of institutions of higher education: teaching and learning.
The regulatory and compliance burden is enormous. The government needs to stop with it. Most large businesses are paying as much to comply as they are in their core mission, profit making or nonprofit.
The current big thing on campus is sustainability. If the college doesn’t appoint a VP for Sustainability then the college doesn’t care about the planet.
@simba9, this is a short term project, so they need to rehire some retired administrators at a new salary and continue to pay their retirement salary.
I really feel there is still a lot of legs to this college boom or bubble. It seems parents today have already accepted that debt for college is acceptable. It is a slippery slope. Once the decision is made it is easy to just borrow a bit more. As colleges increase costs, people will just borrow more. It is only a matter of time until the industry lobbies congress to raise the $5,500 loan limit to freshman. People will begin to cry that they need more money to finance a college education and that the current limits are too low.
I agree there are small private colleges in New England (speaking for my area only) that are at risk but the better schools will always have more demand than they can handle.
@MassDaD68 Northeastern, BU and BC are all reportedly over enrolled for this fall.
It is nice to be snarky about “special snowflake requirements” which impact other people’s kids.
How many posts do we read here from parents looking for us to rank the gluten free friendly cafeterias on campuses? That requires some expertise-- not just a person in a hair net behind the counter. How many parents and kids post about anxiety disorders, anorexia, recovering substance abusers, asking for the colleges which have the most “benchstrength” in dealing with these problems? Kids in wheelchairs who want to know why the studio’s at RISD have ramps in the back but not in the front (because the building was constructed in the 19th century and the sidewalk out front is made of cobblestone).
It is easy to decide that colleges have too many administrators and too many non -instructional support staff and too much money going to non-essentials.
Until it’s YOUR kid heading off to college in recovery, with celiac, in a wheelchair. And then you want (justifiably so imho) a campus which is going to be as safe as possible.
I worked in campus administration my senior year (a go-fer job) and the entire infrastructure of the university fit into one Colonial era building. One dietician for the entire campus. Athletes brought their own towels to workouts-- it was a gym, not a luxury health club. If you weren’t on a team, you got to use the facilities only when the athletes weren’t using them (sure you can swim at 9 pm- but not during lunch). A health center staffed by nurses who referred to local docs or the ER when it was anything more complex than a strep throat. And the dining halls closed at 6:30- after that it was a local diner or a vending machine. You had a learning disorder? Tough to be you. No office of disabilities, no Dean who coordinated accommodations (because there weren’t any). You want to study abroad junior year? We hear Syracuse has a program or two. Try calling them. Want a job when you graduate? Here’s a big black binder filled with job listings. A few are obsolete? Oh well.
What kid would attend that college today?
The hard time experienced by lower tier colleges happened to coincide with the boom of for profit colleges in the last twenty years. It makes perfect sense—if U of Phoenix promises the students labor free and tuition free college degrees (with government subsidized grant and loans) why would these gullible kids go thru four years of hard work and pay some real money to get the college education? I think that the government should just stop distorting high education market and let the likes of U of Phoenix go out of business the remaining small colleges/univ would be much healthier financially. But I imagine with lobbing of for profit college industry and poor student groups its going to be politically difficult to yank government support or at least require the students to pay most of the tuition for the skills they acquire in college.
Did it really take college costs to go north of $200k at undergrad for business managers of universities and colleges to realize they had a problem? Like a lot of things in the US, life has become increasingly commoditized, you get the healthcare, education and access to justice you can afford.
Obviously the 200% increase in college tuition over the last 20 years is not working.
@TomSrOfBoston Yep. Those schools will have no problems moving forward. I will not mention by name the ones I feel will have a harder time competing in the future.
Re #13
Remember this thread?
I could not begin to speak for all, blossom but allow me to clarify my meaning to you. “Special snowflake” is generally used as a demeaning term to those who without any achievements yet, consider themself special. It also applies to those that might melt(figuratively) if they hear speech they disagree with. They are the kind that run away rather than hear speech they disagree with, or worse, will try to shut down someone they might disagree with rather than argue with superior facts. Or, (from wiki) “as being too emotionally vulnerable to cope with views that challenge their own.”
I have never heard the term “special snowflake” applied to someone with food allergies or wheelchair bound. I don’t know where you got that…