Admin. just won’t cut it

There are two ways to deal with budget shortfalls: raise revenues or cut costs. The University of Minnesota has made clear that it wants to raise revenues largely through tuition but has not fully addressed cost cutting, especially administrative cuts.

If University leadership won’t make cost-cutting decisions to avoid balancing their budget on the backs of students, we need to find a team that will. Last spring, the University of North Carolina hired the consulting firm Bain & Company to help with their budget issues and to make the university more efficient — especially its administration. Bain & Co. reported that UNC’s complex structure had 10 layers of management, and that over 50 percent of supervisors managed three or fewer people. Large research universities seem to invite that kind of administrative complexity and inefficiency.

The University of California, Berkeley and Cornell University also recently hired Bain & Co. to consult on budget shortages. Berkeley Chancellor Robert Birgeneau said a “precipitous drop in funding from the state … has produced a budget deficit of nearly $150 million.” Sound familiar? Lack of state funding has hit the University hard too, and if administrators can’t — or won’t — make the necessary cuts (due to lack of internal resources or impartiality), we should look to the methods of our peers to solve budget problems.

The savings that consultants suggest far outweigh the costs. Berkeley paid $3 million. Bain & Co.’s suggested changes in UNC’s administrative structure would save up to $12 million per year. If our goal was to be among the top three most efficiently run universities, our budget problems wouldn’t be so severe. Administration should hire Bain & Co. to review the University’s administrative structure, and cut accordingly.