Did You Know? Administrative Expenditures in the UNC System Keep Climbing

Aug 22, 2019 · Jenna A. Robinson · No Comments

Expenditures for institutional support in the UNC system have increased significantly: from $2,217 per student in 2006 to $4,069 per student in 2017. Adjusted for inflation, that’s nearly 50 percent growth in just 11 years. According to the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System, “institutional support” expenditures include: [E]xpenses for general administrative services, central executive-level activities … Continue reading “Did You Know? Administrative Expenditures in the UNC System Keep Climbing”

Administrative Bloat: Where Does It Come From and What Is It Doing?

Jun 19, 2019 · John Staddon · No Comments

Philip Hamburger recently published a piece in the Wall Street Journal arguing that Congress should control administrative bloat by limiting student loan funds given to colleges with too many administrators. He is dead right about the vast increase in non-faculty bureaucracy in recent decades and the need to reduce it. But the sources of the … Continue reading “Administrative Bloat: Where Does It Come From and What Is It Doing?”

The Mess of Federal Funds Is Changing the University Sep 13, 2019
The modern American university has changed almost beyond recognition from the form it had even 100 years ago. It is larger, more “diverse,” more of a business, and more industrialized with relatively fewer teachers and more bureaucrats than ever before. Those changes have led to new problems. Higher education, if not broken, is at least … Continue reading “The Mess of Federal Funds Is Changing the University”
Did You know? The North Carolina Legislature Provides 41% of the UNC System’s Operational Funding Sep 12, 2019
The North Carolina General Assembly often takes heat from the media on the topic of funding for education. But at least some of that criticism is unfounded. The General Assembly has been generous to the UNC system for many years. State appropriations are the single biggest source of funding for the UNC system: 41 percent … Continue reading “Did You know? The North Carolina Legislature Provides 41% of the UNC System’s Operational Funding”
Can American Higher Education Be Restored? Sep 4, 2019
People who analyze and write about higher education generally fall into two camps. One camp consists of those who believe that our system is “the envy of the world” and just needs more public support to do its great work of improving our citizens and strengthening our economy. (For a sense of what that camp … Continue reading “Can American Higher Education Be Restored?”

UNC Board Steps Up to Defend Civil Discourse on Campus Sep 16, 2019
An important new front in the culture war has opened up at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, one with major implications about intellectual diversity and how universities in North Carolina are to be governed. The controversy concerns plans for a new “Program on Civic Virtue and Civil Discourse,” scheduled to begin in … Continue reading “UNC Board Steps Up to Defend Civil Discourse on Campus”
Free Speech: A Year in Review for UNC Campuses Sep 2, 2019
Last year, the Martin Center released its first report on the state of free speech and institutional neutrality in the UNC system. The report serves two main purposes. The first is to measure how much of an effect the free speech law has had on the state’s public colleges and universities. The law, also known … Continue reading “Free Speech: A Year in Review for UNC Campuses”
The Key to Success for Young People Isn’t Always College Aug 30, 2019
As young people worry about their futures, going to college isn’t necessarily their first step toward a good job. Entrepreneur Isaac Morehouse predicts the relevance of colleges, and the degrees they confer, will erode as employers increasingly look for workers with demonstrated, often self-taught job skills. “I think it will be a long, slow decline, … Continue reading “The Key to Success for Young People Isn’t Always College”

UNC Board Steps Up to Defend Civil Discourse on Campus Sep 16, 2019
An important new front in the culture war has opened up at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, one with major implications about intellectual diversity and how universities in North Carolina are to be governed. The controversy concerns plans for a new “Program on Civic Virtue and Civil Discourse,” scheduled to begin in … Continue reading “UNC Board Steps Up to Defend Civil Discourse on Campus”
The Mess of Federal Funds Is Changing the University Sep 13, 2019
The modern American university has changed almost beyond recognition from the form it had even 100 years ago. It is larger, more “diverse,” more of a business, and more industrialized with relatively fewer teachers and more bureaucrats than ever before. Those changes have led to new problems. Higher education, if not broken, is at least … Continue reading “The Mess of Federal Funds Is Changing the University”
Did You know? The North Carolina Legislature Provides 41% of the UNC System’s Operational Funding Sep 12, 2019
The North Carolina General Assembly often takes heat from the media on the topic of funding for education. But at least some of that criticism is unfounded. The General Assembly has been generous to the UNC system for many years. State appropriations are the single biggest source of funding for the UNC system: 41 percent … Continue reading “Did You know? The North Carolina Legislature Provides 41% of the UNC System’s Operational Funding”