"The number of non-academic administrative and professional employees at U.S. colleges and universities has more than doubled in the last 25 years, vastly outpacing the growth in the number of students or faculty, according to an analysis of federal figures."
That sounds like a cooked study, although to be honest I don't have concrete evidence, just a hunch based on what I know about the atmosphere in universities. The author of the study is a sort of a think-tank called AIR with representatives of the banking, corporate consulting and finance on the board.