NWR: Searching for a College
- Thread starter Bill Lundstrom
- Start date
Those criticisms are well-articulated, and the original article not well laid out, yet the facts remain. Let's remove the straw man if public funding entirely by looking at the meteoric rise in tuition at private colleges. As a for instance, my alma mater's tuition in 1977 ($4000) to now ($74,000). The red herring of "non-teaching, research" faculty Is also removed at those all-undergraduate institutions. And none of those critiques disputes the numbers presented for the growth of administrators.
Mark Lipton
Jeff Grossman
Jeff Grossman
Let us recall that "administrators" means "anybody who doesn't teach". So, security staff, cafeteria workers, bookkeepers, etc. How many more students are carousing, eating, and making paperwork at that campus did you say?
Jonathan Loesberg
Jonathan Loesberg
Administrative costs are not rising because of these positions, which are frequently being cut back. They are caused by the rising number of deans and associate deans of things like Student Life, that didn't used to exist before. They are also caused by the rising cost of technology that didn't exist before. When I started teaching, and office was a desk and bookcase. You now have to add update computers, printers and expensive tech support systems. Student living is also more costly. I doubt any university could survive without these things, but they all cost money.
The problem of faculty who are a paid a lot to teach two courses a semester and do research (and it happens at undergraduate institutions with high ratings as well as graduate institutions)--a problem I loved by the way--is being largely solved by the two-tier faculty, where most of the courses are taught by lower-paid faculty with higher teaching loads, no tenure and no expectation of research. Whether this is good or bad, the reality is that faculty costs have never risen the way other aspects of university costs do.
Bill Lundstrom
Bill Lundstrom
$74k?? for real? i have been on the college search for both my kids recently and $5ok something wa sa high as i saw.
No, administrators are distinct from staff, which is what most of those positions you mention are classed as. And staff BTW is on a steady decline. Every budget cut results in the loss of janitors and clerical staff, not executive Vice Presidents. I've had a ringside seat for watching this happen for the last quarter century and no pundit can gain say those observations.
Mark Lipton
Ian Fitzsimmons
Ian Fitzsimmons
tout/
verb: tout; 3rd person present: touts; past tense: touted; past participle: touted; gerund or present participle: touting
1.
o attempt to sell (something), typically by pestering people in an aggressive or bold manner.
o attempt to persuade people of the merits of (someone or something).
"the headquarters facility was touted as the best in the country"
2.
o North American
o offer racing tips for a share of any resulting winnings.
o British
spy out the movements and condition of (a racehorse in training) in order to gain information to be used when betting.
Not sure how this relates to my post; it didn't seem to me that I was selling or advocating anything in particular. But you perhaps would tout the contrary point of view.
Jeff Grossman
Jeff Grossman
IT costs are often cited as something entirely new, or greatly increased, between the 1960s and now.
I've only rarely read complaints about senior faculty who teach too few courses; the use of Adjuncts has taken care of that.
I've read that the rising number of deans etc. is tied to increased regulation of universities and to a rising perception that the schools must market their brands to compete for students.
Per Mark's response, I did a quick check on my alma mater. I could not find good longitudinal historical data but I can compare my freshman year to today: there are 155% as many undergrads now as then, adjusting my tuition by 155% (to account for like-on-like growth in provided services) and then adjusting for CPI (to account for the 35+ year gap) shows tuition today is a little over double what it was then. Are today's students getting more than I did? Hard to quantify.
Jonathan Loesberg
Jonathan Loesberg
"I've only rarely read complaints about senior faculty who teach too few courses; the use of Adjuncts has taken care of that."
Really? I read this fairly constantly. It's less adjuncts than permanent, non-tenure faculty that have alleviated the problem. But the idea of all those lazy profs, who don't teach much and get paid a lot of money for producing research no one wants to read is fairly recurrent in the popular media.
I don't know when you were a student, but if it was anything before the mid 90s and you go back to your alma mater and check out room snd meal plans (just as the quickest form of indication) I think you will be able to tell that quality of these things is higher.
Really? I read this fairly constantly. It's less adjuncts than permanent, non-tenure faculty that have alleviated the problem. But the idea of all those lazy profs, who don't teach much and get paid a lot of money for producing research no one wants to read is fairly recurrent in the popular media.
I don't know when you were a student, but if it was anything before the mid 90s and you go back to your alma mater and check out room snd meal plans (just as the quickest form of indication) I think you will be able to tell that quality of these things is higher.