More on modern university life

Universities are spending more and more money on administrative staff. Here is a post with references to more in depth material that puts some numbers to this process. Administration is eating up all the revenue and it is growing faster than any other part of the university. Three points of interest in the post: first, faculty positions have risen in line with student numbers (56% rise in students and 51% rise in faculty). The out of proportion rise lies with administrators and their staffs. It has exploded. Second, this trend is bigger in private universities than public ones. The post notes that this "looks to be the opposite of what we would expect if it were public mandates lying behind this [i.e. rise in bureaucrats, NH] trend. Third, this really is a new trend. Universities are changing. As The post notes:

...in the "good old days" top admins tended to be more senior faculty with reasonably distinguished records who had been on campus for a long time and knew the people and the place. Now we have undistinguished professional managers...

I don't know about where you are, but this seems to pretty well sunup the state of play at those institutions that I am acquainted with (like my own).