Jenna Robinson of the Martin Center turns her attention to growing administrative costs within the UNC system.
Expenditures for institutional support in the UNC system have increased significantly: from $2,217 per student in 2006 to $4,069 per student in 2017. Adjusted for inflation, that’s nearly 50 percent growth in just 11 years.
According to the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System, “institutional support” expenditures include:
“[E]xpenses for general administrative services, central executive-level activities concerned with management and long range planning, legal and fiscal operations, space management, employee personnel and records, logistical services such as purchasing and printing, and public relations and development. [It also] includes information technology expenses related to institutional support activities.”
Not included in institutional support are a university’s core functions: instruction, research, and academic support for students. In other words, “institutional support” should be a small part of a university’s operations. Instead, it is a growing source of bureaucratic bloat.
For more information about the UNC System, be sure to download the Martin Center’s University of North Carolina System 2019 Fact Sheet.
