Here are two articles on modern academic life that might
interest you.
The
first is on grad student unionization. I have heard many people argue that
grad student unions would severely negatively affect the mentor-mentee relation
that lies at the heart of grad education. How? By setting up an adversarial
relationship between the two mediated by a bureaucracy (the union) whose
interest is not fully in line with that of the grad student. I have never been
moved by this, but I have been moved by the observation that grad student life
if currently pretty hard with a less than stellar prospect of landing a job at
the end (see here
for some discussion). The piece I link to goes over these arguments in some
detail. His conclusion is that the objections are largely bad. However, even
where it true that grad student unions would change the prof-student mentoring
relationship, it is not clear to me that this would not be a cost worth
bearing. Grad students are in an extremely exploitable position. This is when
unions make sense.
The
second piece is about how the composition of university personnel has
changed over the last several years. If confirms the observation that tenure
track faculty has shrunk and that part-time faculty has risen. But, it notes
that the problem is likely not the
growth in admin people or other non-prof personnel. It seems that this group
has stayed relatively stable. This said, the paper does not investigate funding
issues (are non-profs sucking up more of the money than the used to?) nor does
it discuss how much money at universities is now being diverted from the core
missions of teaching and research to the “entertainment” part of current
university life (i.e. new gym facilities, art centers, fancy dorms, support staff
for entrepreneurship, etc.). Here is the conclusion. I will keep my eye out for
the promised sequel.
The results of this
analysis suggest that the share of employees at colleges who are administrators
has not been much higher in recent years than it was in 1987. There has been
growth, though, in the other professionals employment category. This growth is potentially
related to a growth of amenities and other programs outside of the teaching and
research that have been the traditional focus of colleges and universities,
although this is difficult to ascertain due to the broad nature of this
category. An additional result in the analysis is that the share of faculty who
are full-time employees has been declining. This decline has occurred within
the public sector, the private sector, and the for-profit sector.
One
limitation of the analysis here is that it considers only employment and not
spending on salaries, amenities, or anything else. However, I plan to address
spending by colleges and universities in a future Economic Commentary.
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