How many administrators does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
Economic student Walker Haber reports on administrative overreach at KU and beyond.
Every day in the United States, more than 87 university administrators are hired. A once-selective sector at universities has now become a default starting job for anyone with a master’s degree.
This rampant hiring has led to some schools' demise, such as Becker College in Massachusetts which permanently closed its doors after spending more on administration than on all other instruction, teaching, and schooling combined. Most schools are not going the way of Becker but have simply noticed that students are willing to take out any amount of loans for the college experience. So, they add a couple dollars to tuition for every extra assistant dean or vice provost.
In the coming week, KU is gearing up for the fall by adding eight new administrative positions including an “Administrative Associate in Women Gender & Sexuality Studies (Starting at $46,000/year)” and a “Restorative Justice Program Coordinator (Starting at $52,000/year).” Anyone who has worked in or interacted with university administration in the last decade has felt the bottleneck. While it is frustrating on the surface, its deeper impacts are destroying the universities we love while driving up the costs to attend.
Increased administrative spending is the root cause of the rising cost of colleges. The American Council of Trustees and Alumni wrote a detailed report of administrative growth in the U.S. They contend that when schools lost significant funding after the great recession, instead of cutting unnecessary spending, almost all schools took the risk to raise tuition to match the new deficit. This decision revealed an administrator’s wildest dream, that they could spend money and raise prices without losing enrollment because most students would not pay the full cost of attendance for 15-30 years.
Since then, there has been a decline in graduation rates matched by an increase in tuition and student debt.
So how are universities spending money to get worse? The answer lies in where they spend their money. “Non-instructional spending” (administration and student services) has severely exceeded instructional spending by close to 200%. The days of administrators who also teach are things of the past with most being largely disconnected from the student experience and instead tasked with fixing problems other administrators made.
The Trustees report mentioned above examines how schools are hiring significantly less qualified instructors than they were 15 years ago. A large portion of a school’s budget that goes to schooling is spent on new whiteboards and fancy chairs to increase the “instructional spending” number without improving instruction.
This problem can be seen easiest in the provost’s office. Here is a list of every provost at KU:
Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor, Chief Academic Officer for Lawrence campus
Senior Vice Provost for Academic Affairs and Graduate Studies
Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education
Vice Provost of Community Impact (previously Diversity, Equity, Inclusion & Belonging)
Vice Provost for Finance
Vice Provost for Human Resources, Public Safety, Facilities and Operations
Vice Provost for Student Affairs
Vice Provost for Jayhawk Global
Vice Provost of Enrollment Management
Assistant Vice Provost of Extended Learning
Associate Vice Provost of Jayhawk Flex and Online & Founding Director of the C3Be
Vice Provost for Kansas Law Enforcement Training Center
Assistant Vice Provost for Success Initiatives
Assistant Vice Provost for Orientation, Academic & Career Advising
Assistant Vice Provost for University Academic Support Centers
Assistant Vice Provost (Staff Satisfaction and Performance Initiatives)
Associate Vice Provost for Graduate Studies
Interim Assistant Vice Provost for Academic Affairs and Director of Academic Compliance
Senior Internationalization Officer of Provosts Leadership Team
Vice Chancellor and Chief Information Officer, Chief Information Security Officer
Vice Provost and Dean of the School of Professional Studies
Vice Provost of Jayhawk Global and Competency-Based Education
Associate Vice Provost for Graduate Studies
Associate Vice Provost for Student Support & Academic Services
Associate Vice Provost for International and Global Engagement
Associate Vice Provost for International Affairs
Assistant Vice Provost at Student Affairs
Assistant Vice Provost at Academic Affairs
Assistant Vice Provost for Academic Programs
Assistant Vice Provost of Strategic Development & Communications
Increased administration seems to have the opposite of its intended effect, as each new administrator further complicates the university's ability to address issues.
At its inception, KU had one administrator, Chancellor R.W. Oliver, who was explicitly barred from directing the faculty members at all. The title of provost is new, stemming from the G.I. bill which increased research funding to schools like KU in the 1950s. Even after this, many schools were still reluctant to give a faculty member explicit control over education (Harvard didn’t have a provost until 1992).
Now, KU has over 30 provosts with no noticeable educational difference. The scope of the office's work has become so divided that everything you need done could arguably be handled by 10 different people. This creates administrative runarounds where every staff member is incentivized to suggest that what you are asking for is someone else’s job. Since most university jobs have few specific objectives, promotions stem from quantity and not quality of work. This volume is easiest achieved with new red tape instructors or students need to comply with (there are 79 separate syllabus language requirements professors must abide by). Instead of being motivated to get problems solved, administrators look to create reports or initiatives that often require a brand-new administrator to solve the problem.
This spiderweb of responsibility creates a double bind with increased administrators, where each person has less authority, while at the same time demanding more bureaucracy.
KU Sorority and Fraternity Life is an office whose very existence confuses itself. They were added to manage and control sororities and fraternities; the only problem is that these are student run organizations who need to remain autonomous for liability reasons. Instead, the SFL office tasked itself with the primary task of "advising" Greek life boards that must be run, elected, and governed by students in the organizations. In the last four years, the Inter-Fraternity Council didn’t penalize any fraternity for any infraction. KU now has four administrators tasked to oversee these committees and “Sorority and Fraternity Life,” including a Senior Associate Director for External Relations and an Assistant Director for Community Development. The biggest problem with having four administrators with no authority is that they need tasks to justify their own existence. In Greek life this has become over 20 compliance documents which have caused half of the fraternities on campus to unaffiliate with the university, also furthering that they have no real authority.
These small pockets of administrative growth exist all across campus with most real administration being done by a select few people. Most administrators, with no bad intentions, act in their best interest based on given incentives. For close to twenty years these incentives have included an uncapped budget leading to uncontrolled hiring. To fix these incentives, KU needs to return to its original vision with most of the instructional power being in the board of trustees. Hiring quotas should incentivize hiring exceptional researchers and instructors over administrators through a 4 to 1 professor to administrator salary ratio. Finally, administrators must be redefined. Most high-level administrators should be expected to teach a class so that they have to interface with the student body, and all administrators should have no incentives to increase regulations or bureaucracy.
Walker Haber is a recent graduate in Economics, Political Science, Spanish, and Mathematics from the University of Kansas. He is a new writer for the Free State Journal focusing on administration, Greek life, and sports.
The Free State Journal is dedicated to the mission of improving Free Speech on Campus. For contributions email thefreestatejournal@gmail.com.