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Universities are broke – let’s cut the pointless admin and get back to teaching

theguardian.com

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Re: Universities are broke – let’s cut the pointless admin and get back to teaching

#251

Post by phlakaton »

candiodari wrote: post #101
phlakaton wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For you to make that argument, you must first make the case that 2,700 actually constitutes bloat. Who exactly would you say is expendable and why? (Not getting down to brass tacks is the great weakness in the article too, I think. The author seems to have an idea that these expendable positions can simply be identified by filtering out anyone who can't explain what they do in non-jargon terms, or asking the surplus…

Are you saying that to cut the bloat you actually need to know the business and how the parts fit together ? Heresy ! If that is true then the whole idea behind management is flawed. (management, MBA, business administration and the like depend on the idea that managing one company is pretty much the same activity as managing another. If what you say is true, that you cannot just generically cut then such people shou…

I don't have an MBA, but I recognize that there are many aspects to running a good business, common to many businesses, that an MBA can probably help teach. But just like any other college degree, an MBA is a start or a rounding out, not the complete package in and of itself. I know of nobody sane who thinks that you don't need to know your business's specific needs backwards and forwards to run it well.

Re: Universities are broke – let’s cut the pointless admin and get back to teaching

#252

Post by lmm »

gravypod wrote: post #236
mnm1 wrote: post #6

Yes. This is why I refuse to donate to my alma mater anymore. Tuition has nearly tripled in in fourteen years while they are still teaching the same number of students with roughly the same or fewer full time faculty. There's something seriously wrong with that and this is a huge symptom of it. Until they get their shit together, they need less money coming in, not more. This is supposed to be a nonprofit institution…

> donate to my alma mater I've heard of people doing this but why would you ever have donated your money to someone you have already paid? I wouldn't donate to my pizza place, my doctor, or my barber. Why would a college be different?

My college did a lot of good for me, and the staff I interacted with seemed to be working below-market because they believed in what they were doing. It's a non-profit institution so I expect they would spend donations on something that they thought (rightly or wrongly) furthered education rather than just giving them to someone. And what I paid at the time was subsidised by previous donors and the government, at a time when I couldn't've afforded to pay much more; now that I've done well in life, in a way that seems at least partly off the back of that education, it seems fair to contribute something back.

Re: Universities are broke – let’s cut the pointless admin and get back to teaching

#253

Post by ZeroGravitas »

maxerickson wrote: post #87
secabeen wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a good answer. The price increase is not uniform across the academy, and much of it is signaling-based. At many state schools, the amount spent per student has actually gone down over the last 30 years: https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/uc-educational-e... College is more expensive for the student because state funding for students has dropped precipitously. That means an increase in tuition, but th…

By the numbers people tend to go to 4 year state funded schools. https://www.statista.com/statistics/183995/us-college-enroll... I think 'other than' isn't really the right phrase to use when excluding 3/4 of students.

That's missing his point.

People think that the prices are rising dramatically. He's pointing out that for 3/4s of people those price rises aren't price rises, it's just the person directly paying has changed from the state (i.e. paying via taxation) to the individual student paying. This looks like a price rise to the individual student, but not to the University receiving the payment.

Re: Universities are broke – let’s cut the pointless admin and get back to teaching

#254

Post by tapatio »

santaclaus wrote: post #67

Is this true in the US, in general? My alma mater has a circa 9 billion dollar endowment... yet it still sends me sob story letters soliciting donations.

Mine too. They should be issuing us dividend checks, not asking for donations!

Re: Universities are broke – let’s cut the pointless admin and get back to teaching

#255

Post by phlakaton »

BEEdwards wrote: post #120
phlakaton wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For you to make that argument, you must first make the case that 2,700 actually constitutes bloat. Who exactly would you say is expendable and why? (Not getting down to brass tacks is the great weakness in the article too, I think. The author seems to have an idea that these expendable positions can simply be identified by filtering out anyone who can't explain what they do in non-jargon terms, or asking the surplus…

When your core business is teaching, you have more admin than teachers AND your teachers still have spend a lion share of their time doing admin work, I think it's safe to say you some of those 2700 administrators are unneeded and possibly a hindrance.

I don't think it's safe to say that at all. Where do we get this foolish notion that a job involves only one specialized kind of activity?

You wouldn't tell a software engineer that their only job is to crank out code. That's actually a recipe for either 1) an absolute savant, or 2) a severely career-limited engineer. Engineers need to plan, estimate, document, test, troubleshoot, help recruit, and be technical leaders for all sorts of random things that come their way. We often deride that stuff as "admin work" that keeps us from our true calling – but let's be honest, that actually is part of the job description.

Similarly, it would be foolish to tell a professor that their only job is to sit in front of the classroom and teach. They should be expected to spend time improving their pedagogy, attracting students to their program, being a champion and mentor for students, spending some time in public outreach, and otherwise helping to drive their department's curriculum and agenda so it will flourish. At a research university like Stanford, they will be expected to spend time attracting research and research funding as well. Professors may bristle at having to do all that, and they can't do all of that alone – but again, it's part of the job description, and there's good reason why they're being tapped to do it! You really can't expect an admin to drive the research agenda of your department, for example.

So, where does your statement come from? How do you define "admin work"? Are you a teacher that feels like you're tapped to do stuff you shouldn't be doing? Are you really sure that's work that should be delegated?

Re: Universities are broke – let’s cut the pointless admin and get back to teaching

#256

Post by Armisael16 »

ChrisBland wrote: post #239
gravypod wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> donate to my alma mater I've heard of people doing this but why would you ever have donated your money to someone you have already paid? I wouldn't donate to my pizza place, my doctor, or my barber. Why would a college be different?

I donate to my university, I do it to fund scholarships and programs that I benefited from when attending. I don't donate to the 'general fund'. Although the bulk of my donations to my alma mater go to cancer treatment center at the university medical center which relies on fundraising for research and other programs which I believe will benefit all. I would never donate to revamp a student union as I believe that sh…

Money is fungible. Every dollar donated to the medical center is a dollar freed up from the general fund (until the medical center is totally funded with earmarked donations, of course).

Re: Universities are broke – let’s cut the pointless admin and get back to teaching

#257

Post by SilasX »

wisty wrote: post #158
zippergz wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the research point, why are research and teaching commingled? Both are important, but it seems that they require very different skillsets. Would we be better off filling universities primarily with people who love teaching, and are great at it, and having some other kind of institution (or some separate division of universities) do the research? Is this heresy?

IIRC there's a fairly strong correlation between content mastery and teaching ability, even at the high school level, far more than the correlation between level of teacher training and teaching ability. Obviously there's other factors (effort, as you point out). Though I think it's partly an artifact of the days when an undergrad degree would bring students to the leading edge of research, so there was simply no-one…

>Though I think it's partly an artifact of the days when an undergrad degree would bring students to the leading edge of research, so there was simply no-one else qualified. There would have been a lot more synergy when researchers were explaining cutting edge ideas to students (it still happens a bit, but it's the exception rather than the rule).

Yes, that was my suspicion too -- historically, students were only going to those lectures where they were actually interested and which they were much closer to the level of the lecturer. In that case, the bottleneck isn't "ability to be a good explainer to novices" but "ability to answer arbitrary questions".

IOW, it looked more like grad school today, where the good researchers naturally are a better fit for teaching, and don't mind it as much.

Re: Universities are broke – let’s cut the pointless admin and get back to teaching

#258

Post by phd514 »

arethuza wrote: post #207
cycomachead wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, consider that the desire for greener pastures is a very top-down cultural thing in the US, that's not always true world wide (though, it increasingly seems that way.) By number of students, most higher ed institutions are community colleges, which are (for the most part) low on the BS and extra fun. For profits, and a growing number of 'bootcamp' type schools also fit in this area. However, 4 year schools (star…

Here in the UK my wife has degrees from 4 universities - from middle ranking to prestigious and by her accounts by far the worst teaching was at by far the most prestigious (and we are talking about a world top 20 institution). Having worked in academia this doesn't surprise me in the slightest. NB I know these ranking schemes are pretty dubious.

I also have a degree from a prestigious university where the teaching ranged from mediocre to good. IMO, the quality of the teaching (or lack thereof) was secondary to the fact that the academic bar was set significantly higher than at most other institutions and that I was surrounded by the caliber of classmates who had both the aspiration and capability to excel.

Re: Universities are broke – let’s cut the pointless admin and get back to teaching

#259

Post by maxerickson »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #253
maxerickson wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By the numbers people tend to go to 4 year state funded schools. https://www.statista.com/statistics/183995/us-college-enroll... I think 'other than' isn't really the right phrase to use when excluding 3/4 of students.

That's missing his point. People think that the prices are rising dramatically. He's pointing out that for 3/4s of people those price rises aren't price rises, it's just the person directly paying has changed from the state (i.e. paying via taxation) to the individual student paying. This looks like a price rise to the individual student, but not to the University receiving the payment.

My quibble is with Increases in the actual amount people pay for college (other than at 4-year state funded schools, due to the changes in state funding) are much tamer than the headlines say:

Pretty sure I understood it correctly and that my point is germane. The increases in tuition at public schools are real increases in the actual amount that most people pay for college (which was my point, it doesn't work good to hand wave away the effect on the majority).

As you say, they aren't entirely from increases in spending on college, but again, it says actual amount people pay, which doesn't really imply total spending, it implies the cost to the student.

Re: Universities are broke – let’s cut the pointless admin and get back to teaching

#260

Post by secabeen »

maxerickson wrote: post #259
ZeroGravitas wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's missing his point. People think that the prices are rising dramatically. He's pointing out that for 3/4s of people those price rises aren't price rises, it's just the person directly paying has changed from the state (i.e. paying via taxation) to the individual student paying. This looks like a price rise to the individual student, but not to the University receiving the payment.

My quibble is with Increases in the actual amount people pay for college (other than at 4-year state funded schools, due to the changes in state funding) are much tamer than the headlines say: Pretty sure I understood it correctly and that my point is germane. The increases in tuition at public schools are real increases in the actual amount that most people pay for college (which was my point, it doesn't work good t…

I think we agree, the question is what is the next step. The common rhetoric we hear is that tuition is increasing because those greedy Universities are charging too much, and spending wastefully. My argument is that that's a false narrative. The amount spent on students is relatively flat, and the staff and faculty at state schools are more efficient and are doing more with less than they were 30 years ago. What we should be doing in response to the increase in tuition is to restore state funding, not attacking the Universities.
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