Texas Budget Source

Desks are being added in all the wrong buildings on campus, according to a study released Tuesday that showed universities are growing the ranks of administrators much faster than they are of students or professors.

Researchers looked at staffing and spending trends of top universities from 1993 to 2007 and found “administrative bloat,” which they are pointing to as the Julius Caesar of perpetually escalating costs for higher education.

“Its empire building,” said Dr. Jay P. Greene, a professor at the University of Arkansas who led the study for the Goldwater Institute. “They like supervising. Administrators are the ones making decisions about how to allocate new resources, so they tend to allocate money to things like themselves.”

Nationwide, the number of full-time administrators per student increased 39 percent – compared to 18 percent growth in instructors – during the 14-year time period. The disparity in Texas tended to be even larger.

“Many of the Texas universities are well above average in increasing administration,” Greene said.

That is happening, according to Greene, because Texas is a relatively well-off state. When money is available, it allows for more administrative line items.

At Texas A&M, the number of full-time administrators per 100 students grew by 64 percent between 1993 and 2007, whereas the number of teachers, researchers, and service-providers grew only 9 percent. The study also showed per every handful of 100 A&M students, there are 6.6 full-time administrators and 4.7 full-time instructors and researchers.

The University of Texas at Austin showed a slightly less jaw-dropping trend, but only slight, with administration increasing by 33 percent compared to a 14 percent increase in teaching, research, and service. It employs 9.3 full time administrators per 100 students, with 4.9 teachers and researchers. UT-Arlington, UT-Dallas, Texas Tech University, and the University of North Texas all showed similar results.

Greene said administrators understand what they are doing, like it, and want more of it. He said they want to allocate responsibilities so they are not as burdened by their own responsibilities.

“That also creates mission creep. Universities increasingly feel the obligation to offer more and more with luxury fitness centers, pop music concert series, entertainment, and recreation that students used to obtain with their own resources,” he said.

Mission creep and administrative bloat seep into all sorts of areas, according to Greene, distracting resources and energy from the central purpose of the university which is instruction, research, and service.

University officials have responded to the study by pointing out the amount of growth needed to keep up with technological advances and student support systems.

In an interview with the Dallas Morning News, Baylor spokeswoman Lori Fogleman said the study covers a time when academic and research support, such as building labs and establishing 10 living-learning centers for students, was a targeted and overdue goal. In that same report, UT-Arlington Assistant Vice President for Media Relations Kristin Sullivan said that their university expanded student support services to become a better institution, like adding a computerized information network.

However, Dr. Charles Matthews, former Chancellor of the Texas State University System, said he ran a tighter ship.

“I was over eight colleges, had campuses in 12 cities, with 17,500 employees, 73,000 kids, and a budget of over a billion dollars,” Matthews told Texas Budget Source. “In the five years I was chancellor, I ran my office with 16 people.”

Matthews said that maintaining low operating costs was very hard work, but he was surrounded with smart people who were dedicated as well.

The effect of administrative bloat is strain on a university’s budget, according to the researchers, which marks the start of the same routine year after year. Students protest for lower fees, parents wince as they dole out tuition checks, and legislators begin to sweat while university officials peer over their shoulders.

“Administrative bloat drives up costs,” said Greene, “which are then passed along to students in the form of tuition, the students demand relief so the legislature increases appropriations and inflated appropriations increases administrative bloat. We must get out of that cycle.”

Greene suggests the way to break the cycle is by increasing the share of a university’s resources that come directly from students.

The University of Michigan serves as an example. It is in a unique situation where less than 10 percent of its expenses come from state appropriations, and Michigan was one of the few universities researchers found that actually reduced the number of administrators per student.

“It forced them to economize since state appropriations were so difficult to come by,” Greene said. “So since more money was coming from students in the form of tuition, they had to focus on what students really wanted like quality teaching in classrooms.”

Researchers have a remedy for administrative bloat, and it is to truly make the students the customer.

“If we double the amount of students, we should not double the amount of administrators,” said Greene. “There should be economies of scale.”

Greene said university administrations are creating “diseconomies of scale” by exceeding a sensible correlation of administrators per student.

Matthews suggested scaling back the territory of university administration is not an impossible plan.

“It takes its toll and it is hard work, but it can be done.”