Administrators Nearly Outnumber Undergrads at Stanford University
“In contrast, the number of instructional and teaching staff per student has decreased.”
People wonder how college became so expensive. This is one of the big reasons.
The College Fix reports:
At Stanford, administrators nearly outnumber undergrads enrolled at the school
Stanford University employs nearly the same number of administrators as undergrads enrolled at the school — even as the number of educators per student has decreased over the last decade, an analysis conducted by The College Fix found.
During the 2021-22 school year, which are the most recent data available, Stanford had 7,121 full-time administrators and support staff on its payroll, according to information the university filed with the federal Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System.
In contrast, its reported undergraduate student enrollment came in at 7,645. In other words, there are about 931 full-time administrators per 1,000 undergrads at Stanford.
This is a nearly 22 percent increase from the 2013-14 school year, when there were only 764 administrators per 1,000 students, IPEDS data show.
Administrators and support staff include management, student and academic affairs divisions, IT, public relations, administrative support, maintenance, legal and other non-academic departments.
In contrast, the number of instructional and teaching staff per student has decreased.
During the 2013-14 school year, there were 285 full-time instructional and teaching employees per 1,000 undergrads, IPEDS data show. For 2021-22, that dropped to 272 per 1,000 students — a decrease of nearly 5 percent.
Meanwhile, Stanford’s annual budget for the 2023-24 school year will come in at nearly $9 billion, which is larger than the annual gross domestic product of more than 40 countries.
During the 2021-22 school year, it spent nearly $286 million on salaries for full-time employees; with an estimated additional 30 percent for benefits, that’s roughly $372 million on salaries.
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Comments
Top heavy, they would save money if they cleaned house and retired some administrators.
Is this serious? There are about 10,000 graduate students. I guess they don’t count?
University administrators are often lumped in with staff employees in their units. I don’t think someone should be considered an administrator unless he or she manages or directs somebody or something.
That said, Stanford does have massive administrative (and staff) bloat.
It would be interesting to know whether administrators in the strict sense outnumber faculty at Stanford. From these numbers, it seems they could. (Universities often reclassify some of their administrators as “instructional personnel”—one of several tricks that are available.)