A Professor's Revolt | commentary

A Professor's Revolt | commentary:

Regulations tied to federal financial aid drive administrative bloat, soaring tuition (which requires more federal financial aid with more strings attached, and faculty demoralization. Noah Rothman reviews David Graeber's article in The Chronicle of Higher Education previewing Graeber's upcoming book.

"This is a relatively recent paradigmatic shift in how the academy views the role of administrators in higher education. Graeber observes that, in the 20-year period from 1985 to 2005, the number of administrators increased at universities by 85 percent while the number of students and faculty increased by only 50 percent. In that same period, the number of administrative staff ballooned by a staggering 240 percent.

"Graeber attributes this condition to 'managerial feudalism,' and the label has not been misapplied. The aristocracy he describes is barely distinguishable from seigneury. Department heads and faculty deans are beneficiaries of a modern form of Manorialism. After all, what is a lordship without vassals? As Graeber outlines, reputation demands that every administrative staffer of sufficient rank retain at least four or five subordinates. 'Office workers are typically kept on even if they are doing literally nothing, lest somebody's prestige suffer,' Graeber wrote.

"Payroll costs are expensive. It is no coincidence that in nearly the same period that Graber identifies as the point at which university administrative staff began to expand exponentially the cost of achieving a higher education exploded. Between 1985 and 2011, the cost of a four-year degree increased by 498 percent while consumer inflation rose by just over 100 percent. American incomes have only just about kept pace with inflation in that same timeframe, so the cost of college has for many become a prohibitive expense even if it is increasingly a necessary one.

"As Americans have become concerned that education is becoming a prohibitive expense, the American political class has stepped in to promise them deliverance. Democrats, in particular, are keen to promise miracles: 'tuition-free' college at state and community schools and debt forgiveness for students who attend private institutions are the most popular solutions. But these efforts only mask costs by hiding them from consumers, ensuring that they will continue to grow and at a speedier pace. Thoughtless appeals to public sector intervention in the education market will only make the problem worse because the public sector is largely responsible for the problem in the first place.

"Graeber is surely speaking from experience when he claims the serfs toiling in administrative fields are performing rote and unnecessary tasks, but he's perhaps painting with too broad a brush. In 2013, longtime Johns Hopkins University Biostatistics Professor Roger Peng noted that the administrative staffers he's observed aren't busying themselves with make-work. They're performing a vital service for the university: compliance.

"For example, provosts and the battalion of staffers in their command are responsible for ensuring that the university meets federal standards on issues like 'Title IX, accreditation, Americans with Disabilities Act, and many others.' Among the federal regulations with which universities and colleges must be compliant are guidelines involving age discrimination, animal welfare, anti-trust and anti-corruption laws, hazardous materials training and containment, lobbying restrictions, preserving parental and privacy rights, ensuring student security and adjudicating on-campus offenses, ensuring compliant meal plans and cafeteria spaces are available, meeting UNESCO standards, preserving trademarks, and complying with financial-disclosure provisions. And that's just the federal level. Any school that provides online classes, for example, must run a gauntlet of state-level regulatory mechanisms. All of this costs money, which makes alumni relations and donor maintenance even more pivotal to a university's operations. And none of this happens without a general counsel's office sorting through all of it."