On Skyrocketing Administrative Costs

at the 

University of Minnesota

The new corporate University has numerous executives (administrators) with extravagant compensation.  The amount devoted to "institutional support" (also known as costs of administration) exploded at the University from $108.9 million for fiscal year 2005 to $234.3 million for fiscal year 2010.

The category of "institutional support" includes (1) compensation and benefits and (2) supplies and services.  The Table below shows the explosion of these costs.

University of Minnesota Institutional Support (Costs of Administration)
	2005	2007	2010
Compensation and Benefits	$96.5 M	$118.3 M	$172.9 M
Supplies and Services	$12.4 M	$31.0 M	$61.4 M
Total	$108.9 M	$149.3 M	$234.3 M

Source:  see p. 26 and p. 61 of the 2005 annual financial statement at http://www.finsys.umn.edu/controller/um_annualrpt2005.pdf; see p. 19 and p. 62 of the 2007 annual financial statement at http://www.finsys.umn.edu/controller/um_annualrpt2007.pdf ; see p. 12 and p. 73 of the 2010 annual financial statement at http://www.finsys.umn.edu/controller/um_annualrpt2010.pdf.

Mr. Michael McNabb's series on the Corporate University has received wide attention within and without the University of Minnesota.  Visitors from universities outside Minnesota - especially Penn State and even from overseas - have been frequent.

Some revisions of the series have occured over time, such as the table above.  For links as well as other material these posts should be consulted.  

They are: 

University Inc.

University Inc. Part II

 and:

On the Cost of Administration at the University of Minnesota  

On The Hidden Cost of Research

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