Hacker News Reader

Comment by IdoRA | Hacker News Reader

Keep in mind that if you're not a professor, you're an administrator. Most university administrators are grossly underpaid relative to industry. Also keep in mind that the mission of public universities is more expansive than education for students.

View on HN

Whether administrators are considered underpaid or overpaid relative to industry depends on what industry jobs you consider comparable. Readily available comparisons tend to be prepared by administrators themselves. There is an obvious bias here.

If the comparisons were fair, then I would expect to see university administrators switching back and forth to industry, with salaries going up and down, and for them to offer reasons both ways as to why they did so. That expectation is based on what we actually DO see happen with professors in employable subjects like computer science and engineering. However we DON'T see it happen administrators.

I therefore conclude that administrators are worth less to industry than they think they should be. Which fits with my opinion that they are worth less to education than their pay suggests. And fits with my further opinion that the current growth in number and salary of university administrators is unsustainable and is a luxury that our society cannot afford. Particularly the part of our society that is university graduates with crushing loan debt - which are the people who paid for those administrators and did not receive sufficient benefit from it for the debts that they bear.

I totally agree with you there. But note that there are people who are 50% professors, 50% administrator, For example, we have a VP of Campus Planning, a rotational position, who is 50% professor and 50% administrator while they are in that role. Then they revert back to being a professor after 3 years.

I wonder if we’ll see that shared governance model expand in response to COVID budget pressures? I’d consider that a positive outcome. I haven’t heard any opinions on it in APLU or COGR calls.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com