Exposing the bloat

Mon., March 18, 2019

I very much appreciated Shawn Vestal’s article about the increase of administrators at WSU from 208 to 1,999 over a twenty year period (“WSU’s administrative bloat,” March 10, 2019). EWU has had a similar increase. In the 1970s, early in my teaching career, administrative costs were ten percent of the personnel budget, and they were more than fifty percent when I retired in 2008. I believe a like expansion has happened at all other universities.

College tuition has for some time been increasing more rapidly than the rate of inflation, and student loan debt has reached 1.5 trillion dollars. The main cause is that universities have become top-heavy in administrative expenses.

I hope Shawn Vestal will continue to bring this matter to the awareness of the public and the legislature.

Stephen Scott

Spokane

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