THE BUREAUCRATIZATION AND CORPORATIZATION OF AMERICAN ACADEME

Over the past seven decades a continually escalating bureaucratization and
 corporatization of American higher education has occurred. Accompanying this
process has been a dramatic escalation in the cost of a university degree, with a consequent rise in student debt. This process has also raised questions in public perception about the value of this expensive education in terms of access to higher paying jobs.

The root cause of this escalation in the cost of a university degree can be traced not simply to the increase in all costs associated with the general rise in the cost of living. A more fundamental explanation is the burgeoning number of university administrators--university presidents, provosts, chancellors, vice chancellors in an ever-increasing number of areas. These university administrators who formerly were more academicians with specific educational specializations have morphed more recently into individuals without academic specialties but rather who are bureaucratic administrators dedicated more to the concerns of a corporation, an organization focused on economics rather than the academic mission. As such, these university administrators often award themselves with salaries and raises many times the salaries of the university faculty. The result is a distortion of the goal of higher education and an escalation of student debt. Students and faculty are basically paying the high salaries of university administrators.