After years of cuts in state subsidies and growing resistance to rising tuition, U.S. colleges and universities are starting to unwind decades of administrative bloat and back-office waste that helped push up costs and tuition.
The State University of New York system shaved $48 million in the past two years by cutting unused software licenses and consolidating senior administrators.
Expense Report
How a few colleges went about improving efficiency to cut costs
University of California, Berkeley, restructured its management chain and cut 280 management positions. Savings: about $20 million a year.
University of Kansas centralized some of its 800 computer servers to keep fewer rooms chilled to 64 degrees. Energy savings: about $1 million a year
The SUNY system consolidated elevator-service contracts. Maintenance savings: $500,000 a year.
The University of California, Berkeley, cut $70 million since 2011 by centralizing purchasing and laying off a layer of middle managers, among other things.
And the University of Kansas revamped its back-office operations to save about $5 million in 2013. One example of the fresh efficiency: A new way of deploying maintenance workers shaved an hour of drive time from their shifts each day.
Jeffrey Vitter, the provost and executive vice chancellor at the University of Kansas, said for years schools put off the hard choices on reining in costs. “There clearly is a sense of urgency now and that frankly is a big part that allows us to move forward,” he said. Since reordering its back offices last year, the school, which educates 30,000 students, uses 11 million fewer pieces of paper a year.