One of the top issues discussed in politics is a phrase we hear often — income inequality. Often, when progressives talk about this issue, they mention the huge gap in CEO and worker pay. According to the Economic Policy Institute, in 2014, CEOs of major companies made over 303 times what typical workers in the CEOs’ key industries did. In 1978, CEOs made only 30 times what workers did.
This trend has been mirrored at academic institutions over the same period. According to a study by the American Association of University Professors, presidents’ and chancellors’ pay at public universities have increased 75 percent since 1978 at public universities, adjusted for inflation. At the same time, full-time faculty members saw their pay increase less than 25 percent. Meanwhile, the share of part-time faculty has ballooned, and many of the wonderful professionals in these positions live below or near the edge of the poverty line.
Universities’ spending priorities have been administrative, not academic, and this could not be more disastrous for the future of higher education in the U.S.
So it is with great disappointment this editorial board received the announcement that the UNC Board of Governors voted (in closed session) to raise salaries for chancellors across the university system, including for Chancellor Carol Folt.
While pay for administrators has increased over the years, there has been little demonstration that it has been for a good reason. Excuses of following the market ignore the truth that university governance used to be performed admirably by career educators for modest salaries.
The University needs the Board of Governors and Board of Trustees to radically reimagine the priorities of the university system just to reverse the damage that has been done. This means a return to more democratic administration with closer ties to faculty, reducing administrative bloat and rejecting the philosophy that dictates the University be run like a corporation.
While there are thousands of things $50,000 could be used better for at UNC than raising Chancellor Carol Folt’s pay, clearly this decision is more symbolic than anything. But it is in line with the disturbing trend of corporatizing higher learning. Once upon a time, administrators were usually plucked from the ranks of faculty, and the number of administrative positions at universities was much smaller.
This national trend of administrative bloat also accounts for much of the increase in tuition seen nationwide, which has been echoed in North Carolina, leading the system further away from its mandate in the state constitution to provide higher education to its residents free of expense as far as practicable.
It should be noted that UNC has resisted some of these national trends more than its peer institutions. UNC is exceptionally affordable relative to its quality, administrative salaries are thankfully not in seven figures and most of UNC’s faculty are full-time (though a majority are non-tenure track). Still, decisions like the Board of Governors’ indicate a creep in an unacceptable direction, a direction that already has done incalculable damage on the campus level.
