[potatolicious]

That's the most infuriating part of it, and lines up with my own experiences in university. During my years there tuition exploded, but the faculty saw little to no additional hiring, and certainly our profs weren't getting major raises.

Instead the administration exploded, with new assistants and managers appearing every day. The worst part was that it was still impossible as a student to get anything done. It took me literally 6 months to reschedule an exam (through processes clearly spelled out by school regulations, in fact). This was at the University of Waterloo, FWIW.

In the end I had to threaten to sue the school to get them to do anything. In hindsight, it was entirely an empty threat, but it seemed to get me on an escalation chain somewhere. It took an additional month to get the exam set up.

I have zero respect for the administration at my alma mater, nor any institution of higher education. As far as I am concerned, they are all leeches, subsisting off the good will and good work of the profs, post-docs, TAs, and students who are actually doing anything.

"The bureaucracy is expanding to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy" - to this date the post-secondary education system is the most egregious example of this quote I've ever had the displeasure of dealing with.

[rdl]

What do university administrators do? Schools seem relatively simple to manage, since most of the labs are small scale enough to run themselves, with the university providing some basic infrastructure.