University Admin Bloat Is Why You're Still Paying Off Your Degree

Between 1993 and 2009, the number of administrators at American universities grew by more than 60%. Faculty numbers grew at a fraction of that pace. Meanwhile, tuition doubled.

This wasn’t an accident. It was a business model.

The sales pitch was simple and seductive:

1. Get the degree.

2. Unlock the career.

3. Pay off the debt in a few years.

For decades, the college degree was sold as the non-negotiable price of admission to the middle class.

What students were actually funding was something else entirely: a bloated, rapidly expanding administrative class that had almost nothing to do with education.

These administrators weren’t teaching your classes. They were building small empires with titles like:

• Associate Vice Provost for Student Success and Belonging

• Director of Institutional Effectiveness

• Chief Compliance and Risk Officer

• Chief Diversity Officer

Every one of those roles came with six-figure salaries, generous benefits, and their own support staff. The bureaucracy fed itself.

University presidents now routinely clear over $1 million a year at public institutions. One year, the president of Ohio State took home $6.9 million. “We need to pay competitive salaries to attract top talent.”

Apparently, the 18-year-olds signing up for $100,000 in loans weren’t part of that “competitive” equation.

From 1978 to 2023, college tuition skyrocketed more than 1,600%. Inflation during the same period was roughly 360%. The federal government’s response? Make more student loans available. More easy money meant universities could and did charge even more.

Thanks to their nonprofit status, universities pay no taxes on the massive endowments they’ve hoarded. Harvard’s endowment exceeds $50 billion. A small fraction goes to financial aid. The rest sits in sophisticated investment portfolios, managed by executives earning hedge-fund-level compensation tax-free.

The people who designed and defended this system? They’re long gone. They earned tenure decades ago, when a state school cost a summer’s worth of wages. They retired comfortably on generous pensions.

You’re still paying for the Associate Vice Provost for Student Success and Belonging. And you’ll keep paying for her successor, and her successor’s successor, for years to come.

The system wasn’t built for students. It was built to extract from them.