Administrative costs in higher education: how fast are they really growing?
Document Type
Article
Department or Administrative Unit
Economics
Publication Date
3-2009
Abstract
It is widely believed that administrative expenditures in US higher education are growing too rapidly, particularly in relation to expenditures that are directly related to instruction, and that this so‐called ‘administrative bloat’ is a major factor in the rising cost of higher education. We argue that this perception of rapid growth is exaggerated, and that it results from focusing on simple expenditure aggregates that obscure important variation across institutions. A more careful analysis using panel‐data methods supports a more benign conclusion that administrative expenditures, and their ratio to instructional expenditures, are stationary over time. This conclusion is supported by panel unit‐root tests. This suggests that some of the concern about the role of administrative expenditures in rising higher‐education costs may be misdirected.
Recommended Citation
Hedrick, D. W., Wassell, C. S., & Henson, S. E. (2009). Administrative costs in higher education: how fast are they really growing? Education Economics, 17(1), 123–137. https://doi.org/10.1080/09645290701523184
Journal
Education Economics
Rights
© 2009 Taylor & Francis
Comments
This article was originally published in Education Economics. The full-text article from the publisher can be found here.
Due to copyright restrictions, this article is not available for free download from ScholarWorks @ CWU.