"Public universities overall had 21.1 staff per 100 students in the 2009-10 academic year, compared with 22.9 staff in 2001-02, according to the report from State Higher Education Executive Officers.
Staffing declines seemed to be steepest among the roughly 100 schools in the Carnegie classification “research, high activity,” a group of schools smaller in research scale (if not in size) than the top research institutions. Schools in that group went from 45 staff per 100 students in 2001-02 to 40 staff in 2009-10. Staffing changes in other categories of schools, including the top research schools and non-research institutions, were comparatively smaller." Full article here.
Albert says: The reduction in staff appears insignificant, and I wonder how these numbers compare with higher ed in California. What about in community colleges? Does the ratio of 40 staff per 100 students seem appropriate to you?
4 comments:
The " 40 employees per 100 students" is why I've always felt that the financial problems in higher ed have less to do with needing higher tuition or more money from the state and more to do with reducing the continually burgeoning numbers of administrators and their staff. Unless I interpret these numbers incorrectly (i.e. does the 40/100 include the 4/100 ft teachers?) there are 10 times more staff than faculty. What is wrong with this picture?
And yes, in the k-12 world there is more staff than years ago (a friend of mine remembers teaching middle school for YEARS when there was only a principal and his/her secretary), but I'm sure there is nowhere near the 40/100 ratio. And K-12 gets more money per student -- clearly more goes to education.
In HE, there is less funding and more staff. The students are being robbed, and there is no way that raising tuition or taxes is going to fix that.
I'm actually kind of interested in the concept of smaller "charter" universities where the faculty also "run" the institution. I'm sure the students would get a better and more personal education. I don't think this would be more expensive for the students . . . not if the state gave the charter school the same funding per student colleges/universities get now. The money would go to the teachers and the educational process -- not the robber-baron administrators.
Accreditation would be a major hoop. I can't help thinking the deck would be stacked against a "workers cooperative" institution. Other concerns include but would not be limited to location, organization, curricula, course delivery, start-up, $$ and morfe.
But let's do some research and learn more about the charter option. Here's link to an article: Charter University: A New Paradigm
The deck would certainly be stacked in terms of opposition by faculty unions, you can be sure.
Think about it: if faculty ARE the administrators there would be little needed in the way of negotiations. Perhaps funding would work more along the lines of a business agreement between the interested parties.
Accreditation? Why not piggy back on a local institution as the K-12 charter schools do? However, I'd be more inclined to seek out a private college/university like National (not a for-profit like ITT or UofP). If we tried to work with a public college I'm sure employment?HR difficulties would immediately emerge.
For instance, locally we have a very successful high school . . . I think it is not even charter, but it is focused and small: Anderson New Technology High School (http://www.anths.org/). So of course the students here are interested in a certain aspect of education.
Notice on their website how few teachers, staff, and administrators there are! Also notice that there is double the number of faculty over staff. Imagine how much money per student actually goes to that student?
In California where a district receives around $5000 per year per FT student, think what an institution of this size could do with a small group of 30 qualified students or so.
Money is supposed to circulate so that 40 people (who are these people, how are they counted?) benefit from the tuition/taxpayer support of 100 other people is not a "bad thing." The issue not addressed is that of economic uncertaintly for certain people in this case the ESSENTIAL TO THE SYSTEM BUT UNRECOGNIZED AND ABUSED part time faculty who in addition to receiving very low salaries are psycholocially abused-- victims of a system in which they work "at the whim" of someone who does not work at whim -- in fact has job security and all sorts of benefits -- which everyone should be entitled to (Universal single payer healthcare) and pension provisions or workmen's compensation -- few of us will work until we "drop dead" on the job. (I can tell you that one's health and mental acuity both decline with age.)
I don't remember the exact figures but in the US I believe 80% of the nation's wealth (and I guess this means money that should circulate but isn't circulating) is in the hands of something like 10% of the people. a situation perpetuated by the current tax laws: a similarsituation that existed at the time of the depression. Personally, I would prefer a depression (solved by raising taxes back to 90% where they were in the 1950's -- graduated taxes on people starting at incomes of 60K -- median income -- possibly no tax on incomes below 30K) . Other events that might instill a sense of community could be a great deal more disastrous. I esp. abhor the argument that WWII ended the great depression. (It certainly led to the death of lots of people, resulted in lots of destruction which resulted in lots of post-war jobs. but this is not a great way to go.)
Best to all.
Anna Spiro
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