The Invisible Administration?

The economist Richard Vedder asks, what do 2,358 college administrators do? That magic number is the number of college administrators in the University of California's central office. It does not include the number of college administrators at various campuses in the UC system, which totaled 8,822 two years ago (more than the number of ladder-ranked faculty!). He points out that the UC system has 240,000 students and a budget of over 24 billion dollars a year, which That means that the UC system is spending over $100,000 a year for each student. Unfortunately, much of that $100,000 per student does not go to help the student, or even the faculty. It goes to the administration. Vedder wonders if half of the administrators were eliminated would the students even notice? It is a question worth asking. (See here for some commentary about how things are likely to go at UC in the future.)