Yale Epitomizes Academic Administration Bloat

The trend towards increasing the number of administrators at colleges and universities relative to students and professors is notable at most major institutions in the U.S., but Yale, with almost one administrator per student, and slightly more administrators than professors, is at the cutting edge of this development. 

It is a trend that is somewhat puzzling because its root source isn't entire clear (to me anyway).

Over the last two decades, the number of managerial and professional staff that Yale employs has risen three times faster than the undergraduate student body, according to University financial reports. The group’s 44.7 percent expansion since 2003 has had detrimental effects on faculty, students and tuition, according to eight faculty members.

In 2003, when 5,307 undergraduate students studied on campus, the University employed 3,500 administrators and managers. In 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic’s effects on student enrollment, only 600 more students were living and studying at Yale, yet the number of administrators had risen by more than 1,500 — a nearly 45 percent hike. In 2018, The Chronicle of Higher Education found that Yale had the highest manager-to-student ratio of any Ivy League university, and the fifth highest in the nation among four-year private colleges. . . . the number of Yale’s administrators today exceeds the number of faculty — 5,066 compared to 4,937[.]

From here.