Are American universities approaching “Peak Administrative Bloat”? Some might think so. Consider the following job titles and salary estimates: “Principal Assistant Chancellor of the Office of Strategic Dining Technology, $180,317”; “Associate Executive for the Task Force on Donor Climate, $368,186”; “Assistant Provost for Athletic Maintenance to the Subcommittee for Neighborhood Outreach, $415,314.” Fortunately, those are just make-believe cases taken from the University Title Generator, but you get the point. The joke sounds plausible because it reflects the perception of an underlying reality: administrative bureaucracies and salaries have grown significantly, according to Independent Institute Research Fellow Vicki E. Alger, author of Failure: The Federal Misedukation of America’s Children.
Administrative bloat is one reason that college tuitions have climbed. Research costs are another—and reducing them would ease the student-debt burden. “Shrinking the ranks of nonteaching research faculty and putting professors back to work teaching would help undergraduates access the courses they need while saving them $2,000 to $3,000,” Alger writes.