Redefining University Administrations: The Redistribution of Student Tuition Funds to Form and Maintain Bureaucracies
Open Access
Author:
Remlinger, Benjamin
Area of Honors:
Economics
Degree:
Bachelor of Science
Document Type:
Thesis
Thesis Supervisors:
Jadrian Wooten, Thesis Supervisor Russell Paul Chuderewicz, Thesis Honors Advisor
Keywords:
Student debt Tution prices Bureaucracy Max Weber
Abstract:
College tuition costs continue be a rising problem for students around the United States. Millions of young and middle-aged Americans have thousands of dollars of student debt, and many of them are paying for a product substantially inferior to what it was three decades ago. Consistent growth in tuition costs over this time period has helped grow and permanently establish a bloated bureaucracy on college campuses around the country. Building on Max Weber’s theory on bureaucratic development, we interpret our data in light of his methodology. Using data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA), Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), and College Board we find that, among all sectors in the economy, the higher education sector has had the greatest unit labor cost increases since 1990. This implies high growth in employment and wages, but decreasing productivity. Furthermore, our results show a statistically significant relationship between increased government student loans and the higher education sector’s employment, suggesting a strong correlation between government’s involvement in higher education and college administrations. Bureaucratic administrators take advantage of federal student loans to redistribute the money into their own pockets to maintain their order and control over university faculty.
