In a Nutshell

[Jolly]

The Journal also noted that perhaps the cause of such Orwellianism was too many idle administrators chasing too few students: “For 16,937 students, Stanford lists 2,288 faculty and 15,750 administrative staff.”

VDH on Stanford...

https://amgreatness.com/2023/03/19/what-happened-to-stanford/

[George K]

The rise of administrativa is not unique to (cough) higher learning.

[Jolly]

I don't know if we can put the genie back in the bottle short of a Great Depression event.

[Klaus]

In my place, we have 28,000 students, around 500 faculty, and 2,000 administrative staff.

[Mik]

Ohio State - 46,000 employees, 67,000 students. Still too large.

[Axtremus]

@Klaus, just curious, are janitorial, landscaping, and food services contracted out or operated by the university itself?

@Jolly @George-K some question for hospitals.

Follow up question, if applicable, is whether janitors, landscapers, and food services staff count under "administrative staff."

[George K]

@Axtremus said in In a Nutshell:

@Klaus, just curious, are janitorial, landscaping, and food services contracted out or operated by the university itself?
@Jolly @George-K some question for hospitals.

I doubt it. Those positions are pretty constant, iow, for a given hospital, I doubt that you would need more janitors, etc as time passes.

You've this (now old) chart before.

[Mik]

When I was a programmer for the Medicare intermediary in the mid-late 80's we figured out that if we just got rid of review and paid every claim that came in the door the taxpayer would have saved money.

[Jolly]

Over a thirty year period, my hospital saw approximately the same number of patients, albeit with a pronounced shift to outpatient events. Our doctor numbers remained fairly steady, but with less residents and more staff positions.

But we saw a marked increase in HR, various nursing desk jobs (InfCon, PI, etc.), HIS, and at least a half-dozen Clipboard MBA types from Admin, covering things like Joint Readiness, etc.

None of these guys actually laid hands on a patient.