Ohio U Now Has More Administrators Than Professors: Time To Quiz Brass?

CINCINNATI (TDB) -- Tuition costs at Ohio's state-supported universities have become so burdensome that Gov. Ted Strickland and lawmakers imposed a freeze this year. Now the student newspaper at Ohio University has discovered a startling number that may deserve even more attention from Columbus: The Athens campus has more administrators than faculty.

The Post said in an editorial called Complete Garbage that the school "is overpaying a multitude of bureaucrats" while laying off janitors.

"The university employs a total of 1,412 full- and part-time administrators on the Athens campus, a sum that even exceeds the number of full- and part-time faculty (1,278), according to the Office of Institutional Research.

"The university has chosen to dispense with a basic necessity [24 custodians] while retaining the luxury of overpaying a multitude of bureaucrats. Hiring more police officers is a good idea, but a cut in custodial staff should not be the source of the funding necessary to make that possible. Instead, the funds should come from an adjustment of top-level administrative salaries. Perhaps one of the many top-level administrators will realize that necessity when the university has accumulated more dustbunnies than students."