Why Colleges Need More Money

If the fundraising apparatus to which which facutly is attached is growing in size, then why is the cost of going to a university going upward so rapidly?

I would submit to you that the university is actually a faculty attached to a fundspending apparatus, and one whose appetite for new funds to spend seems to be growing at an alarming rate.

The university increasingly mirrors the public school system.

school sucks.

it's too bad it took me 16 years of schooling and 10 years in the workforce to realize this.

> If the fundraising apparatus to which which faculty is attached is growing in size, then why is the cost of going to a university going upward so rapidly?

Because, evidently, they are successfully mining one particular source of funds, among others.

Often administrators are listed as faculty which bumps up the average professor salary quite a bit.

The same process (administrative staff becoming the largest component of total staff) is occurring in the public schools, too. In Shelby County, TN (Memphis area), instructors of all types comprise 71% of employees. Teachers used to comprise over 80% of employees.

The trend towards more administrators is worse in hospitals. Hospitals have fewer beds, fewer doctors and nurses, but more administrators than ever. The administrators blame this on government regulations and the need to deal with dozens of insurance plans. But, strangely, private labs and doctors offices haven't needed 50% increases in non-clinical staff.

"school sucks. it's too bad it took me 16 years of schooling and 10 years in the workforce to realize this."

While I don't fully agree with this opinion, I completely understand why you feel this way. It wasn't until college that I found any of my educational experience worthwhile. But even in undergrad - at a top-25 school - the quality of both students AND instructors was marginal at best.

But how is work any better? Large companies are giant bureaucracies (not much different than the government), and small companies are often staffed by morons. Unless you happen to get lucky and work in a firm with incredibly talented folks.

This is why you do not feed the animals. Rather than making friendly animals, it creates an obsession with the next handout. The real disservice is not the relative size of the fundraising apparatus, but a change in the whole focus of the organization.

Colleges have an impossible task. At the touch of my fingers, I can discuss important issues with the major thinkers, past or present.

If a college thinks they compete because students are willing to give up the internet and drive through 10 miles of traffic, walk across campus, and get info from a barely noticable professor?

No, and students who attend traditional college will be left farther behind in this efficiency trap. The only reason anyone should attend lectures these days, is to insure that the public colleges get their per diem payments from taxpayers, otherwise the expense of the lecture hall is better spent on the Internet.

The trend is indeed bad, but two caveats are that part of those administrators are staff such as secretaries. Also, the kicker on the faculty part is the trend to part-time faculty.

Dissolution of the Monasteries - time for, again?