Colleges cut instruction spending in favor of admin salaries and lawncare

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**Frazzled**

I am so not surprised by this
http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2009-01-14-college-spending_N.htm?csp=34

Colleges cut instruction spending
usatoday.com

Most of the nation's colleges are gradually paring back their investments in classroom teaching, an analysis of federal data shows. And all colleges have in recent years been spending a greater share of their revenue on expenses other than instruction, including computing centers, student services, administrative salaries and lawn care.
Those are among findings of a report released today that sheds light on where various types of colleges and universities get their money and how they spend it. While instruction remains the largest share of education and general spending at most colleges, much of the revenue raised by increasing tuition is not going to that core function of higher education, it concludes.

With one notable exception, "Students are paying for more and arguably getting less, particularly in the classroom," says Jane Wellman, director of the Delta Cost Project, a Washington-based non-profit that released the report. It is based on federally reported data from 2002 to 2006 of nearly 2,000 public and private institutions that enroll about 75% of all college students.

The exception is private research universities, which spend more per student than any other sector, but which enroll fewer students overall than most other institutions.

The report found that total spending on education and related services, including academic and administrative support, remained flat or declined between 2002 and 2006 everywhere but at those institutions, which can draw from more sources, including endowment income.

That could change as more private research universities, including Cornell, Harvard and Yale, see precipitous drops in their endowments.

At public colleges and universities, much of the decline in instruction spending — which is primarily faculty salaries and benefits — can be linked to a decline in state appropriations.

"I don't think institutions have decided to disinvest in instruction," Wellman says, but their spending patterns do show "a lack of a strategic approach."

"The quickest place to cut costs is in instructional programs. When the primary focus is on balancing the budget from year to year, you grab what you can and spend where you must," Wellman says.

Existing data can't speak to the quality of education, nor is it detailed enough to determine whether specific spending is justified. A key goal of the report is to encourage institutions and policymakers to be more transparent about their finances.

"Policymakers and the public are showing increasing skepticism about spending in higher education, questioning whether tuition increases are helping to expand access and improve quality," it says. "The data in this report show that this is a valid question."

Other findings:

•More students, particularly low-income and minority students, are attending the colleges and universities with the least to invest in students. "Basically what we're asking is (for) a set of folks who don't have resources to pay more, even as we disinvest in their instruction," says Kati Haycock, president of the Education Trust, a non-profit that works to increase access to college.

•If tuition increases were tied to increased spending on education-related expenses, tuition at most public institutions would have dropped between 2002 and 2006. At public research universities, about 8% of tuition increases can be linked to increased spending on education-related expenses.

•At some point between 2002 and 2004, most private four-colleges began spending a larger share of their budget on administrative and academic support than on instruction. The exception: private research universities

**dietrich**

My mother teaches at Penn State. This isn't news, it's been going on for at least 10 years. No one wants to get rid of their personal secretary, but they're more than happy to not replace a retiring instructor and increase class sizes. Major colleges are all about the benjamins these days - whether it's research or athletics. Major colleges will get rid of good teachers that don't bring in research money and losing coaches with high graduation rates. Did anyone really believe that the Ohio State University fired John Cooper over graduation rates and that it wasn't because he couldn't beat Michigan?

**Belphegor**

head ---(insert momentum)---> <IMPACT> || WALL
*repeat*

**Phoenix**

Unfortunately, a lot of it is true. I remember talking to a lot of my professors back in college and finding that they were a bit dismayed at academia because it focused more on research than on teaching. No place was this more apparent than in the U.C. Berkeley math department. The professors there that I had for classes were mostly middle aged white guys who spoke English as their first language. Unfortunately due to over exposure to higher math, they were completely unable to communicate with the students in any meaningful way. The first one I encountered just boggled my mind. I could understand every individual word he spoke, but when put together in the way he said them, they didn't make any sense at all. I had to retake that class. Fortunately next time around I got the little old Hungarian lady with the super thick accent (think Dr. Ruth)… I could understand her.

But it's things like this (money or not) that show that the focus of a lot of these schools is research rather than learning because in the end, it's research that brings in the money and not the learning.

**dietrich**

I think a lot of it is due to the general devaluation of the Profession. We now view only lawyers and doctors as 'professionals'. But, there's engineers, educators, and other fields that have a 'profession' that requires a high standard and a lot of education/training, but instead they're now viewed more as commodities. Once something is a commodity, the price of something vs what it can generate in revenue is the controlling criteria.

**Frazzled**

I'm getting from this that student services (including lots of office of this and that nonsense) and increased bureacracy (admin) are driving the cost.

**dietrich**

Yep. Which is true in a lot of industries right now - health care especially but K-12 education as well. Government offices come to mind as well.

**warpcrafter**

So, where did the writer of that article learn such a devious word as "Disinvest"? Having come out of a third-rate public school district where their idea of higher learning was AVTS, (Basically advanced auto-shop) and college was not on the agenda except for the top 1%, People have the choice of either going to one of those career training schools where they teach you just the bare minimum to maybe get a job making above minimum wage or floating from one low-paying crap job to another until it's time for their ignominious retirement. Only one of my close relatives ever went to a four-year college, and he never got a job in his major. I have two jobs, constantly worry about money and I don't even have any kids. I think that this is just another sign that the U.S. is in its decline as a world power.

**Frazzled**

Yes, I've never seen government shrink. It inevitably expands to fill all available space until it either implodes or someone comes along and implodes it for them.

**Kilkrazy**

Frazzled wrote:Yes, I've never seen government shrink. It inevitably expands to fill all available space until it either implodes or someone comes along and implodes it for them.

This is true. It happened under Reagan and Thatcher and it happened under Labour in the UK. I don't know about Clinton. I suspect it's happened under Bush with the creation of Dept of Homeland Security, and so on.

**dietrich**

Republicans went from the 'cut taxes, spend less' party to the 'cut taxes, don't spend anymore' party. How is it that the Dems managed to become the 'balanced budget' party? Who's the Rep strategy team that managed to drop that ball?

Each President comes in and acts like they're going to cut programs that don't work and/or aren't needed. I don't think any of them really have. Just look at the intelligence community - there's probably 2 dozen agencies. At least Bush tried to put most of them under one roof.

**Frazzled**

dietrich wrote:Republicans went from the 'cut taxes, spend less' party to the 'cut taxes, don't spend anymore' party. How is it that the Dems managed to become the 'balanced budget' party? Who's the Rep strategy team that managed to drop that ball?

Indeedy. And now they've lost the Presidency, Senate, and the House as a result. I myself am hard pressed to sense the difference between them in that regard.

**dietrich**

Don't worry. The out of power party always colors themselves as the 'change' party. The Rep will retake Congress in 2 or 4 years. The Country's ills wouldn't suddenly be cured just because BHO is president. It'll take him 6 months to start doing anything, another year to get anything finished, and at least two years to see results - so the US will have the same problems for the midterm elections. They'll hold it about 10 years, something will go down the drain, and the Dems will regain control. Rinse repeat.

**Railguns**

I can attest to this. The year I started college funding for the Visual and Performing Arts departments was cut in half. This drastically reduced the amount of talent grant money they could give out(about half) and they simply could not afford new instruments and such. Recently, the school has started a policy that no one, NOONE, can use the university copy center. For anything. Not even professors. They are literally not allowed to give out syllabi. And of course, VAPA money has been cut again. This is in the midst of parking registration doubling, dorm reservation quadrupling(from $25 to $100), late registration fees doubling from $50 to $100, and room/board costs rising.

Edit: I just remembered the new $150 dollar academic excellence fee they added too.

**sebster**

I work in the accounting dept of a university. Not in the US, but I think it still gives me some insight.

There’s two basic rules when it comes to university spending;
1) Universities waste money.
2) People will complain about universities wasting money, but will be utterly, horribly wrong when they try to show where money has been wasted.

For instance, if a course is examined and its found that it could be taught by a more junior lecturer, allowing a senior to spend more time in research, that’s money saved right there and then. Of course, the headline then reads ‘less money spent on teaching’ even though the quality of education is the same. If a staff member was hired to study university spending and locate ways to save money without sacrificing the quality of education, he gets talked about as rising admin costs.

And that isn’t to say universities don’t waste money, they surely do. Just that as a rule of thumb, however the paper says they’re wasting money is almost certainly wrong.

**BloodofOrks**

My college experience has been more or less defined by this sort of thing. I used to attend the Atlanta College of Art. The school had an excellent reputation for putting out skilled, successful artists and illustrators. However, the Woodruff arts center who owned the college managed to destroy their finances in an attempt to build a symphony hall. (They seriously expected the city of Atlanta to cover half the costs and played a game of financial chicken which they had no chance of winning.) The result: the school was sold to SCAD in an under the table agreement which was not announced until it was far too late to be stopped. Most of the student body left. Those of us who remained were frankly pretty shocked at SCAD's approach to education.
Studio classes are two and a half hours instead of five, our tuition went up (we got a voucher to make up the difference, but SCAD has found every opportunity to deny students their vouchers "oh, you signed up for classes two days too late, you no longer apply for the ACA voucher... ever." Or my favorite, "we don't have your major so you may need to switch, but if you do then you lose your voucher.

SCAD doesn't have a drawing major (I was forced to beg professors to teach high level drawing classes just so I could earn enough credits to graduate.), the school even blows the money every quarter (that's right we're on the quarter system it sucks that bad) to totally repaint the interior of the building. It would be shocking if the attitude weren't so familiar. Keep up appearances but offer little content. SCAD has more money than ACA could have ever dreamed of, but SCAD spends noticeably less on education.
I've had to pre-screen instructors because not a few of SCAD's teachers are terrible will simply waste your time. I actually ended up dropping a class once because the instructor knew less about the subjects she was discussing then I did and I just couldn't deal with her passive-aggressive racism. But hey, in a year I'm gone and every letter I get asking me for money will be going straight in the trash.

**Railguns**

We had a similar situation in which ULM cut off the occupational therapy program on 46 people who were to graduate that year. Told them to go somewhere else or start over.

**Kilkrazy**

To be fair, all businesses waste money and it can be very hard to quantify how money is being wasted because a lot of work is hard to quantify.

For example, if you run a car exhaust fitting service, it is pretty easy to quantify how much a particular exhaust costs at trade, and how long it will take to fit, and this gives you your basic costs.

If you run a computer game programming company, it will be a lot harder to quantify how much code is costing to write, because it doesn't get written at a constant rate, and the quality varies and isn't neccessarily proportional to the spent spent.

Education is a bit more like programming than fitting car spares.

However, the more quantifiable bits of education are things like infrastructure (painting buildings, etc) so if they are going up faster than inflation there is probably something wrong.

The challenge all organisations face is when the people in charge of deciding how money is spent get divorced from the people who have to do the actual work the organisation was created to do.

**Railguns**

Or in some cases, were never aligned in the first place.