Free image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net

The costs of a college education are getting out of hand. Even state schools are seeing a dramatic rise in tuition, and way too many students are leaving college with a mountain of debt. Something has to give.

Meanwhile, articles like this one are pointing out a potential problem – the explosion of administrative costs at American universities.

J. Paul Robinson, chairman of the Purdue University faculty senate, walks the halls of a 10-story tower, pointing out a row of offices for administrators. “I have no idea what these people do,” says the biomedical engineering professor. Purdue has a $313,000-a-year acting provost and six vice and associate vice provosts, including a $198,000-a-year chief diversity officer. Among its 16 deans and 11 vice presidents are a $253,000 marketing officer and a $433,000 business school chief. The average full professor at the public university in West Lafayette, Ind., makes $125,000.

The number of Purdue administrators has jumped 54 percent in the past decade—almost eight times the growth rate of tenured and tenure-track faculty. “We’re here to deliver a high-quality education at as low a price as possible,” says Robinson. “Why is it that we can’t find any money for more faculty, but there seems to be an almost unlimited budget for administrators?”

Read the entire article and it will probably piss you off. The dean-to-professor ratio is getting out of hand, and hopefully people will start demanding changes.