Yes. I worked for a university briefly as a staff member. Our university sung far and wide about how it just raised $400 million for its endowment in its most recent fundraising campaign, and yet, it couldn't afford to pay me more than a $25,000 salary in the IT department. How on earth is this possible? It's probably in all the unseen costs they pay out in contracts to subcontractors. But another clue might be this: during the time of my employment, there were several ongoing, large construction projects.
Universities are obsessed with the rankings of US News. And for some reason, they feel that campus renewal and renovation construction projects are the secret to mastering them. So instead of paying a decent wage to the people who actually comprise the "college experience" for their students, they pay outsized amounts to further improve their already glittering campus so that it looks better on the 15 minute admissions tour that prospective students take.
Somewhere the priorities are out of whack. I think if universities stopped spending so much money gaming the rankings, they might realize that paying their staff more and paying their faculty more would translate into a better, more involved college experience for their students. And that, in turn, would make their students evangelize to other prospective students about how much they love their college...
Once upon a time, administration was 20% of college budgets. It's now 50% (guess who does budgeting?). You need look no further than that to find your answer.
They also have to spend a lot of money on computer labs, stadiums and gyms and such to boost the reputation and attractiveness of the school. It's much easier to judge how beautiful and modern a school is during a quick visit than it is to judge teaching quality.
Furthermore, 18-year-olds with guaranteed loans don't look at the price tags for those gimmicks rationally. When you're a kid with $300 in the bank the difference between a $50,000 loan and a $80,000 loan is so abstract it might as well not exist.
Combine those two factors and you get runaway spending and debt with little emphasis on teaching quality.
The administration usually consists of former faculty. Deans and Vice Presidents are selected from department heads. These positions are rewards for faculty who have served longest or who are more politically connected. I've even seen Computer Science faculty serve as the head of the IT department.
I imagine that they pay what they have to in order to fill the number of positions they need filled. How could they pay anything less than the market rate and still fill the positions?
I guess a revolving door supply of cheap labor is what lets them fill an IT position while only offering $25k. You said you worked there briefly, I assume you found a better job and moved on.
Clearly the product is not the problem with enrollment meeting quota and certainly no downward pressure on tuition cost... I say that tongue in cheek -- this is the university's (business') perspective.
This thing you point out about construction is what has always struck me as an European. The first American university I visited was Princeton and you'd expect it to look very good and have wonderful facilities (and it did). On the other hand I visited small local university like Curry and Bentley, which have absolutely no academic clout and I really don't should have such nice campuses, when the quality of courses is pretty low.
Your comment really is illuminating to me: news outlets, and possibly parents doing touring when college shopping only really care about the surface.
staff are generally thought of as costs and universities try to pay them as little as possible expecting high turnover. at least that's my assumption based on their actions.
with adjuncts it depends on the major and class. the whole idea is that they are not full time, so if a person chooses JUST to do that , then I am not surprised they have a hard time getting by. I have a full time job and adjunct (the adjunct position pays pretty good), but from what I observed adjuncts make more for their time than joining the reserves.
I dont know how the hours and the workload worked out for the french teacher, but usually a class is either 13 3 hour courses or 26 1.5 hour ones. thats about 40 hours for the semester. the outside of class time really varies on subject, years of teaching the course, the students, etc. I generally expect to spend 1-2x the time of the class with outside of class time.
My wife has taught as an adjunct (music) at a pretty large state school. She had to decline the last couple of offers from them because we self-imposed a rule that she can't lose money by teaching there. That's right, the cost of gas (just 21 miles round-trip) plus her parking pass for the semester would exceed the amount they were willing to pay.
> there were several ongoing, large construction projects
This seems obvious to me. When someone donates millions of dollars to a university, they want their name on a building. The Thomas J Somebody Architecture Building. The Susan C Millar Library.
Nobody wants the Frank T Frankhauser IT Department payroll fund.
Universities are obsessed with the rankings of US News. And for some reason, they feel that campus renewal and renovation construction projects are the secret to mastering them. So instead of paying a decent wage to the people who actually comprise the "college experience" for their students, they pay outsized amounts to further improve their already glittering campus so that it looks better on the 15 minute admissions tour that prospective students take.
Somewhere the priorities are out of whack. I think if universities stopped spending so much money gaming the rankings, they might realize that paying their staff more and paying their faculty more would translate into a better, more involved college experience for their students. And that, in turn, would make their students evangelize to other prospective students about how much they love their college...
Improve the product, not the marketing.