[AdrianB1]

The numbers in the post that you respond to are picturing a different situation: there are almost 3 admins per professor. That means the universities are not teaching places, but administrative places with some teaching as a secondary activity.

I think people overcomplicated universities and that is what makes admins needed. Taking a step back, we need to make universities teaching places again, with 1 admin for 3 professors, not the other way around. Imagine savings, needing less grant money, less audits, less funding that comes with strings attached.

In the end I think people make up too much irrelevant work. And that needs to go away.

[nhma]

A more relevant metric than admins/professor would be admin staff/scientific staff. Given that a research group under a professor will probably contain numerous associate professors, assistant professors, postdocs, PhDs, and research assistants who all generate some admin workload, 3 admins per professor does not sound outlandish.

[BrenBarn]

I'm not sure what the person meant in the comment you're replying to, but it sounds like in your comment you're reading "professor" as "full professor", which is not how I'd read it. I'd read it as basically "faculty member".

[eli_gottlieb]

Postdocs, PhD students, and RA's are not faculty either.

[chabska]

An airline has three times more aircraft mechanics than aircraft pilots. Would you say this operation is an aircraft repair and maintenance shop that happens to do some airplane flying on the side?

[coliveira]

Universities became complicated because it is now a business. If you have a business, you need to complicate it to justify higher prices over time.

[skywhopper]

You are misinterpreting what’s going on. Universities are places where lots of people live and work. There’s support staff for all of that. Some activity that goes on is teaching. Some is research. Some is community engagement and outreach. All of those functions also need support staff, particularly research. At many large universities, research is the primary function, not teaching. Research requires a lot more support staff than teaching.

[AdrianB1]

I think I am not misinterpreting. I expect an university to do teaching and focus on teaching (including some research). I expect any auxiliary activity to be minimized as much as possible, from cafeteria workers and campus electricians to HR and accounting.

[skeeter2020]

do you think this is parallel to the growth of "you MUST attend university" mindset?