[AdamM12]

I think you could argue it's created a class of wealthy and super wealth admins who don't add value. From what I've read several studies have shown the vast increase in college expense has been sucked up by administrators and non teaching staff. I was looking at my college's (midwest state school) payroll and the various provost were making $600k. Kinda wondering what in god's name these people do.

[bumby]

I honestly don't think you're far off, but I also tend to think the "wealth admins" are a response to system inputs.

Take an example of catering to veteran students. Previously, many schools had a single person who was the veteran liaison as a side duty and not their primary function. When the post 9/11 GI Bill promised much more money for service members, colleges responded by having entire dedicated teams to help veterans navigate school. From the outside this may look like admin bloat to some, but for the college it actually does add value by helping attract students and guaranteed tuition payments. In a perfect world, that increase in students would ideally offset the salary for those positions, but I'm not sure if that happens. Please note that I'm not necessarily saying that's a bad thing, it just highlights that "wealth admins" may be providing something considered valuable to the university. Multiply that by all the various special interest groups and the number of administrative personnel can grow quite fast.

[Aeolun]

They sit around and make sure the teachers work. For some reason teachers think their 50k salary isn’t enough, so you need someone to keep them in line.

Note: Actually, I have no idea, but that is what my mind immediately went to when hearing provost.