More Salary Data

The American Federation of Teachers (AFT) recently put together some statistics in their report "The State of Higher Education Workforce 1997-2007." It compiles now-familiar information on faculty salaries and the steady decline of tenure-track teaching. Researchers put these findings next to statistics about the growth of administrative staff, and the picture is one I've written about quite a bit on the blog: universities are spending more on administration and less on teaching.

These findings won't shock you, but here they are, from the executive summary:

• The number of full-time tenured and tenure-track faculty members declined from approximately one-third of the instructional staff in 1997 to just over one-quarter in 2007.

While the overall number of faculty and instructors grew over the 10 years, nearly two-thirds of that growth was in contingent labor, which increased from twothirds to nearly three-quarters of all instructional staff.

• The number of administrators, the majority of whom were full time, also increased by a substantial percentage.

This group grew by 41 percent, to a total of about 59,000, between 1997 and 2007. This growth was concentrated in full-time positions, with the number of full time administrators growing by 43 percent and accounting for 99 percent of all administrators.

Talking Points
In every report on higher education, the data tell the same story: universities are spending more on administration and less on education. This has got to be a key message AAUP internalizes as we move forward in tough economic times. It has been administration, not teaching or research faculty nor academic professionals, who have been the winners in the past decade. As we look to cut costs, that message must be clear.

Students Up, Staff Up More

The New York Times recently ran an article of the type that makes you go "hmmm."

Over the last two decades, colleges and universities doubled their full-time support staff while enrollment increased only 40 percent, according to a new analysis of government data by the Center for College Affordability and Productivity, a nonprofit research center.

During the same period, the staff of full-time instructors, or equivalent personnel, rose about 50 percent, while the number of managers increased slightly more than 50 percent.

The data, based on United States Department of Education filings from more than 2,782 colleges, come from 1987 to 2007, before the current recession prompted many colleges to freeze their hiring.

One is loath to draw too many conclusions, but the article does, gingerly, point the finger at ballooning administrative superstuctures:

[T]he findings raise concerns about administrative bloat, and the increasing focus on the social and residential nature of college life, as opposed to academics.

“On a case-by-case basis, many of these hiring decisions might be good ones, but over all, it’s not a sustainable trend,” said Pat Callan, president of the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education.

As we tick down to the Legislature's report on the state of the economy (Tee minus one day and counting), the question of prioritizing precious dollars becomes all the more pointed. Add this to a growing body of reports illustrating that it's the adminstration, not staff represented by AAUP, who have seen the most growth in the past two decades. We've mentioned on some of those reports here:

• Decline of Tenure Track Faculty
• Facutly Salaries Are Not Driving Up Costs
• The Trouble With "Flexible Faculty"
  
• OU Administrative creep
  

Ballooning OU Administration

Let me draw your attention to a blog over at the University of Oregon that's garnering some attention: UO Matters. An anonymous blog, it is mainly directed at shining a light on the UO administration. The posts there are not directly germane to AAUP's bargaining with Portland State, but given the interconnectivity between OUS schools and the budget cuts we're about to be asked to make, it is certainly worth a gander. Take a look at a post from last week, where the blogger charts administrative creep:

So, in less than 3 years UO's core central admin has gone from 2 people earning a total of about $350,000 to:

• $320,000 Jim Bean, Provost
• $212,000 Frances Dyke, VP for Finance
• $170,000 new VP for helping VP for Finance Frances Dyke
• $177,000 Russ Tomlin, VP for Academic Affairs
• $181,000 Robin Holmes, VP for Student Affairs
  
• $124,000 John Moseley, Spec Asst to Provost Bean (that's the pay for 1/2 time)
• $99,000 Lorraine Davis, Spec Asst. to Pres and Provost (")

Totals $1,283,000 before we talk benefits, secretaries, staff, fancy offices, ... (We are omitting jobs such as VP's for Research, Information, etc which have not changed.)

On Friday, the Oregon legislature will issue the revised budget numbers, expected to be very grim. They will certainly ask universities to cut staff. One wonders what proportion of the cuts will land on administrators versus teaching and research staff and academic professionals.

Faculty Salaries are Not Driving Up Costs

Yesterday I quoted from a nice piece talking about the state of higher ed and the sharp increase in the use of adjuncts to cover cost spikes. Below is from an email AAUP General Secretary Gary Rhoades sent out a couple months ago adding to the argument. He offers three critical data points to debunk the myth that faculty salaries are driving cost spikes. I'll quote from his email and then distill it into three handy talking points. First, his points:

1. You can't blame faculty salaries for increases in tuition and costs. Faculty salary increases have been well below increases in tuition and well below increases in senior administrators' salaries, which have increased disproportionately. Adjusted for inflation, tuition increases between 1989 and 2005 averaged about 6 percent a year; between 2002 and 2006, tuition at public universities increased by over 29 percent. From 1999-2000 to 2007-08, the yearly increase in overall average faculty salary ranged from 2.1 to 3.8 percent; adjusted for inflation, faculty salaries either decreased or increased less than 1 percent in six of those years (see table A in the 2007-08 Annual Report on the Economic Status of the Profession). Between 1995-96 and 2005-06, presidential salaries increased by 35 percent, adjusted for inflation, compared to 5 percent for average faculty salaries (figure 3, 2006-07 Annual Report on the Economic Status of the Profession ); from 2005-06 to 2007-08, the two-year increase in senior administrators' salaries outpaced both inflation and the increase in average salary for full professors (figures 1 and 2, 2007-08 Annual Report on the Economic Status of the Profession).
2. You can't blame increases in faculty numbers for increased tuition and costs. Full-time tenure-track faculty numbers have increased at a far slower rate than have numbers of other professionals and administrators. Between 1976 and 2005, full-time tenure-track positions in the United States increased by only 17 percent, compared to a 281 percent increase in nonfaculty professionals and a 101 percent increase in administrators (see figure 3 in the 2007-08 Annual Report on the Economic Status of the Profession).
3. Spending on instruction has declined in all sectors of higher education, while spending on administrative costs has increased. Between 1995 and 2006, overall spending increased, but the share of instruction was down in all sectors (for example, in public master's institutions it was down from 53.9 to 50.8 percent; in private master's institutions it was down from 45.0 to 43.0 percent). The share of student services increased (from 9.9 to 10.9 percent in public master's institutions and from 13.9 to 15.6 percent in private master's institutions), as did that of administration and other support (from 36.2 to 38.2 percent and from 41.1 to 41.4 percent, respectively--See figure 8, Trends in College Spending, Delta Project).

Talking Points
The take-away from the data is stark. Costs are up, but priorities have shifted. Tenure-track and tenured faculty positions are frozen while non-faculty and administration positions have proliferated. As a proportion of the pie, the amount going to faculty continues to decline.

• Faculty salaries have increased far more slowly than tuition increases or administration salaries.
• Since the 1970s, universities have barely added new tenured faculty, but nonfaculty numbers are up 281%, and administration numbers have doubled.
• Administrative costs continue to eat up a larger proportion of total spending, while money devoted to teaching declines.
  

The question to ask is: are these the right priorities for our universities?

The Trouble With "Flexible Faculty"

Among the many problems besetting higher education is the increasing reliance on adjunct faculty to manage teaching loads. The Nation recently had a great story on this issue:

Nienow is among 391,000 part-time or "adjunct" faculty at community colleges and public universities, positions that have increasingly replaced full-time, tenure-track jobs. Despite being the source of most of the teaching at colleges, these short-term appointments pay only about a fourth as much, per course, as tenure-track positions, seldom come with benefits and offer little job security or possibility of advancement....

The percentage of "contingent faculty"--a term that includes part-timers and full-time, non-tenure-track lecturers--on university payrolls has risen from around 43 percent thirty years ago to 70 percent in 2005. The rate of these hires at many colleges has only accelerated amid the economic downturn. To cash-strapped educational institutions increasingly run like corporations, adjuncts and part-timers are cheap labor--stopgaps in university budgets.

"We're the flex faculty," said Niame Adele, a sociologist and part-time instructor at the University of New Mexico.

Call them flexible or fungible, it is precisely this vulnerability that makes part-timers and adjuncts an expedient solution to budget shortfalls.

"Flexibility" is a word we're going to be hearing more and more, particularly as economic times worsen. But it's important to recognize the reason universities are cash poor--ballooning administrative costs, not rising faculty salaries.

But this change has not come about because of the increased cost of educating students: over the past 15 years, tuition at public institutions has risen 2 to 3 percent above inflation, per year; yet the amount of money spent on educational services has remained stagnant. This is due in part to a decline in state support, but also to a shift in priorities. The money, Bousquet says--and the savings reaped by hiring adjunct faculty--has gone toward ballooning administrative costs, positions and salaries; venture partnerships with corporations; and the construction of costly, extravagant facilities that critics say have more show value than instructional utility.

Now that these sources of income are strained, administrators say they must trim back elsewhere to proceed with scheduled construction. Many colleges, however, are stopping short of reducing salaries for top-paid administrators, which have risen 35.6 percent in the last five years. Ohio, which announced it would cut overall spending on public higher education by $25 million, is sparing any cuts in salaries of its 154 top administrators, among them the highest-paid university president in the nation, Ohio State's Gordon Gee, who makes $775,008 per year (before bonus). The median salary for public university presidents in Ohio is $355,000. On top of rising administrator salaries, the number of administrators at many colleges has risen as well, according to the Associated Press.

Times are tough, and universities are asking to shoulder the pain. These numbers help explain why universities are struggling through tough times in the first place.