Our Universities: The Outrageous Reality
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The author here insinuates that the increased cost comes from paying for teaching and research. But this is wrong for at least five reasons:
1. Research is not a cost center for colleges. It is a profit center. Usually, research is not funded by the college itself; rather, professors get grants from outside agencies, which the college then takes a large, juicy cut of for itself. (Ask any professor.)
2. At most colleges, the number of faculty members per student has remained stagnant for the last thirty years. The author waves their hands about "new areas of knowledge", but these new areas aren't leading to more hiring.
3. Wages for tenured faculty have also remained stagnant, adjusted for inflation.
4. Colleges are rapidly replacing their tenured faculty with adjuncts, who are given heavy courseloads, and paid peanuts even compared to tenured faculty (barely minimum wage, in a lot of cases).
5. Most of the actual work of research and teaching is done by grad students, of whom there are far more than tenured faculty. Grad students are, again, a profit center rather than a cost center, since the university gets to charge them "tuition" (despite most of them taking few or no classes). This "tuition" is either paid by an outside research agency, or "generously" waived in exchange for the grad student doing teaching and grading, again at very low wages.
Modern society expects universities to act in loco parentis. We expect them to prevent (or deal with the fall out from) school's alcohol culture. We expect them to prevent sexual assault, or respond to it with some kind of judicial system. We expect a fully staffed career center to help students revise resumes and draft cover letters. We expect them to have a full time staffer dealing with diversity issues, and another with Title IX, and another (few) with financial aid.
These are all new positions, and many are actually required by law.
If you want to argue against middle management, I'm not at all clear the schools are to blame. They're responding to clear demands from the government and from parents.
That's the part to be flummoxed about
The potential for abuse is certainly there, but calling it a seperate justice system is a tad disingenuous. Most importantly, it seems that the standards for evidence and the rights of the accused are far less than in real courts.
But how do you solve this? My opinion is that severe things like expulsion should only be considered if found guilty of a felony (or even only a violent felony) in an actual court of law. The difficulty of conviction is a feature, not a bug, of the legitimate justice system. Administrative punishments should only be meted out for administrative "crimes" (cheating, violating housing agreements, etc) that have no corresponding crime in the criminal code.
I have yet to look into the numbers in greater detail but if you could point me toward some good sources it would be much appreciated.
I just looked up the operating budget for my alma mater (Oregon State University), and if I'm reading it correctly, administrative costs are about 1/3 of the total. Interestingly, the direct instruction and research portion increased 5% since last year whereas the administration portion increased 15%. And looking back 10 years, the the direct instruction and research costs increased 85%, whereas admin costs increased 110%. So the admin : education costs ratio appears to be slowly increasing over time.
I have no idea how representative this is of other universities, though, and wouldn't be surprised if it isn't.
Imagine: thousands of applicants from around the world vie for a spot in Nollege, a new kind of edtech startup. Admitted students are flown to the "campus", an exotic site, rotating yearly and chosen for its cheap room and board. Instruction that can be automated a la Khan Academy, is; more experienced students also tutor newcomers as needed. Students spend half their time on work-study/internship programs, which cover all costs of attendance. They're encouraged to leave whenever they feel ready, be it one semester or 10; no arbitrary rules about which courses to take. When they do, they emerge with the same bonds of friendship and learned knowledge as their college-attending peers, but are years ahead in working experience and also debt free.
Perhaps this would be most feasible for cs, where the only materials needed are a laptop and WiFi, but I could see it working for English, art, mathematics, and many other disciplines.
But a lot of people, such as Harvard admissions, do pretend that attending Harvard has such benefits.
In contrast, no one at Harvard is pretending that they couldn't afford to enroll ten times as many students.
Put another way, Thiel fundamentally doesn't fund most people because most people are bad investments. Harvard admissions isn't claiming that it won't admit you because you're a bad investment and would devalue their brand. They're claiming that, if you were admitted, the experience of attending Harvard would increase your personal quality, but they nevertheless won't admit you for undisclosed reasons.
You're not going to learn abstract algebra from an employer!
I'm not opposed to such schools, I just think they should advertise themselves honestly, and not try to compete with four-year schools for the same reason McDonald's doesn't try to compete with a steak house.