Cornell’s restructuring points to a deep insufficiency in higher education
The recent announcement from Cornell President Michael Kotlikoff on the University’s austerity measures is an acknowledgement of a long-standing problem in higher education: administrative bloat.
Concerns over Cornell’s administrative bloat have become more salient as universities have faced increasing political scrutiny. The Trump administration has waged a war on universities, charging them with being strongholds of liberal indoctrination. These institutions, the administration claims, have brainwashed students with anti-American values while cradling large, untaxed endowments and filling their halls with left-of-center administrators. The anti-bureaucratic wave on the right, formerly headed by Elon Musk and his DOGE faction, has moved from government efficiency concerns to criticisms of institutions’ ever-growing administrative bloat.
Critiques of universities’ swollen administrations is a relatively old and well-documented phenomenon that has faced scrutiny from both ends of the political spectrum, from the liberal Progressive Policy Institute to the conservative Heritage Foundation. The problem is generally diagnosed as this: while faculty positions are cut, the number of administrative roles increases, driving up costs for universities and tuition for students. At Cornell specifically, the number of administrators has increased by around 17 percent since 2013. Excluding Weill Cornell, in 2021, the University had around 7,565 non-academic staff as compared to 2,823 academic staff. This comes out to about one administrator for every three students, including undergraduate and graduate students. Tuition in this time period has simultaneously outpaced inflation by around 1.68% and has increased by over 50%. In fact, Cornell’s tuition has increased more than rates at comparable universities; in 2024-2025 Yale’s tuition increased by 3.9%, and Brown’s by 4.5%, while Cornell’s has increased by 4.9%.
The austerity statement released by President Kotlikoff on June 18th is the first acknowledgement of this issue. The contents of his statement, however, seem to generate more questions than they answer. According to Kotlikoff, “since June 2021, Cornell’s workforce has grown by more than 15% — greatly outpacing our revenue.” This differs from the narrative previously presented by the university concerning financial difficulties in the annual tuition budget statements. For at least the past two years, the administration has primarily attributed the increase in tuition prices to “inflationary pressures.” However, Cornell spent $48,562,565 on administrative employment costs in 2021, and $90,480,604 in 2024. This is an 86% increase in administrative salary costs in just three years. And yet, this does not include the $500,000 increase in executive officer and key employee compensation.
To understand the significance of this, it is important to look at the correlation between administrative costs and tuition. In The Fall of the Faculty by Benjamin Ginsberg, he outlines the issue in broader terms:
“Every year, hosts of administrators and staffers are added to college and university payrolls, even as schools claim to be battling budget crises that are forcing them to reduce the size of their full-time faculties. As a result, universities are filled with armies of functionaries—the vice presidents, associate vice presidents, assistant vice presidents, provosts, associate provosts, vice provosts, assistant provosts, deans, deanlets, deanlings, each commanding staffers and assistants—who, more and more, direct the operations of every school.”
Ginsberg reported that the number of administrators has increased by 85 percent and that administrative staffers have increased by 240 percent. Certain salaries have also increased nearly exponentially. Vice presidents and deans at UMD “saw their salaries increase as much as 50 percent between 1998 and 2003, a period of financial retrenchment and sharp tuition increases at the university.” Furthermore, a Department of Education study found that the proportion of spending on faculty has decreased, with little to no increases in salary for professors. A common reason given for increasing the number of bureaucratic staff is increasing administrative burden. Federal grants with high compliance requirements and growing student bodies have given universities plenty of reason to hire more people to handle these problems. However, this is not a satisfying explanation. Administrative staffing in U.S. colleges and universities has surged far beyond the growth of faculty or student enrollment. Additionally, despite the more intense compliance burdens on public universities, private universities have increased their administrations at higher rates than state universities.
Theoretically, as administrators increase in number, more manpower can be dedicated to the student experience. However, Cornell has suffered from serious quality of life issues in recent years. In the academic year 2023-2024, around 146 students were forced to live in temporary forced quintuples and triples in dorm common rooms. Cornell admitted 13 percent more freshmen to the class of 2029 than in the previous year, spurring complaints about overcrowded dining halls and libraries. Dorms that have housed upperclassmen for years, such as Morrison Hall, now shelter the teeming freshmen class, who attend overcrowded intro classes and study like sardines in common areas. Rising juniors and seniors who want to live on campus will fight tooth and nail for the remaining housing before being pushed into the lion’s den of the Ithaca housing market. All of this has occurred while the sticker total cost of attendance for endowed and out-of-state college tuition has risen to above $96,000 annually, and to over $100,000 annually if one is on the Cornell Health insurance plan.
This is not a criticism of the hard-working administrators at Cornell. Certainly, some administrators are essential for Cornell’s operations. It is only to say that the proliferation of administrators is not in line with student interests. As cost of attendance increases, Cornell’s student population shifts into two groups: low income and lower middle class students who get generous financial aid and students from wealthy families, missing certain students from middle class families. While Cornell is committed to making itself more accessible, private college tuition still presents an insurmountable barrier for many who desire to attend a university that nearly guarantees upward mobility for many students, or, if one starts wealthier, promises maintenance of their current socioeconomic status. Additionally, while Cornell financial aid is generous, it often decreases throughout one’s time at Cornell. While many freshmen are given generous packages, the generosity does not often extend to their sophomore, junior, or senior years. Reduced packages are commonplace for upperclassmen, and people are often left scrambling to find solutions. So, Cornell, please reduce administrative costs. Avoid paying lip service to the noble ideal of accessibility and take steps to substantively help students by reducing tuition and unnecessary operational costs. Second, make Cornell more worth it. Instead of hiring more administrators, invest in more professors and pay them more. Third, be more transparent about where tuition dollars are going. Tuition increases have been cited as the driving force behind university expenses, but the recent austerity statement revealed administrative costs to be another significant cost driver, despite little communication about this. This lack of transparency, even as families struggle to afford Cornell’s tuition, represents a misalignment in priorities.
As seen in the staggering increases in administrative costs and by the president’s own admittance, the current trend is not sustainable. Cornell’s increasing administrative costs and headcount have pushed tuition to increase faster than inflation. The result crushes middle class students. The recent pressures coming from the federal government cannot be scapegoated as the sole cause of this deep-rooted issue; instead, they have only hastened the exposure of the problem.
Isabella Cho is a junior in the College of Arts in Sciences majoring in government. She can be reached at ic374@cornell.edu.
