Support-Staff Jobs Double in 20 Years, Outpacing Enrollment

Autor/inn/en	Brainard, Jeffrey; Fain, Paul; Masterson, Kathryn
Titel	Support-Staff Jobs Double in 20 Years, Outpacing Enrollment
Quelle	In: Chronicle of Higher Education, 55 (2009) 33, (1 Seiten) PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	0009-5982
Schlagwörter	Employment Patterns; School Personnel; College Administration; Costs; Hospitals; Student Personnel Services + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Beschäftigungsstruktur; Schulpersonal; College administrators; Hochschulverwaltung; Cost; Kosten; Krankengymnast; Krankenhaus
Abstract	Colleges have added managers and support personnel at a steady, vigorous clip over the past 20 years, new research shows, far outpacing the growth in student enrollment and instructors. Support staff--like budget analysts, computer specialists, and loan counselors--nearly doubled from 1987 to 2007. Meanwhile, jobs for instructors increased by only about 50 percent, according to a report to be released this week by the Center for College Affordability and Productivity. Colleges added nearly 300,000 such "back-office" jobs over the 20-year period, as well as about 64,000 administrators and managers, according to the center's report, "Trends in the Higher Education Labor Force: Identifying Changes in Worker Composition and Productivity." Although this report draws no direct link between growth in back-office staff and rising tuition, it does conclude that the scale of the expansion reflects unproductive spending by academe, as labor is the biggest expense for most colleges, and more jobs mean higher spending on salaries and benefits. Enrollments also grew over this period, but the rate of growth of managers and support staff, many of whose positions did not exist 20 years ago, increased much faster. Jane Wellman, director of the Delta project on postsecondary costs, says the pattern of staff growth and spending on administration is not the biggest driver of college costs. Others include declines in state appropriations, which have led public colleges to raise tuition. But administrative costs do contribute, she says, and raise questions about whether colleges are moving away from their core missions of educating students (ERIC).
Anmerkungen	Chronicle of Higher Education. 1255 23rd Street NW Suite 700, Washington, DC 20037. Tel: 800-728-2803; e-mail: circulation@chronicle.com; Web site: http://chronicle.com/
Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2017/4/10