HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Growing academic bureaucracies are eating academic programs.

McHugh notes that additional costs of growing academic bureaucracies is not only that they expanded so rapidly in the good times of higher education but that they have now proven unusually resistant to shrinkage as budgets have tightened, especially those with politically sensitive constituencies. If budgets shrink and bureaucracy doesn’t: well, do the math, the savings have to come from somewhere, namely academic programs.

McHugh also notes that as the bureaucracy becomes larger and more sprawling it also becomes increasingly difficult to keep track of what all the bureaucrats are doing and making sure that their behavior is aligned with the academic values of the institution.

For some that’s not a bug, but a feature. But as organisms’ parasite load grows too high, they become less competitive and risk extinction.