The Center for College Affordability offers a great chart of the week, displaying the growth in the number of staff per student. At both public and private universities, the faculty numbers grew modestly, but were dwarfed by the change (1976 to 2006) in the increase in the number of “other professional” positions. Interestingly, private universities have reliably employed a larger relative percentage of administrators than public universities. As one commenter speculated, “I guess more diversity officers, fewer window washers.”
