Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Ivy League Admissions.

Between 1975 and 2005, total spending by American higher educational institutions, stated in constant dollars, tripled, to more than $325 billion per year. Over the same period, the faculty-to-student ratio has remained fairly constant, at ~15-16 students per instructor.

One thing that has changed, dramatically, is the administrator-per-student ratio. In 1975, colleges employed one administrator for every 84 students and one professional staffer—admissions officers, information technology specialists, and the like—for every 50 students. By 2005, the administrator-to-student ratio had dropped to one administrator for every 68 students while the ratio of professional staffers had dropped to one for every 21 students.

Apparently, as colleges and universities have had more money to spend, they have not chosen to spend it on expanding their instructional resources—that is, on paying faculty. They have chosen, instead, to enhance their administrative and staff resources. A comprehensive study published by the Delta Cost Project in 2010 reported that between 1998 and 2008, America’s private colleges increased spending on instruction by 22% while increasing spending on administration and staff support by 36%. Parents who wonder why college tuition is so high and why it increases so much each year may be less than pleased to learn that their sons and daughters will have an opportunity to interact with more administrators and staffers— but not more professors.