The bloated bureaucracies of American universities did not emerge overnight, and they won't be fixed by simplistic solutions. In their compelling Manhattan Institute issue brief, Professors Siri Terjesen and Michael Ryall provide a sophisticated roadmap for university reform that deserves our full attention.

Their central insight may seem trite but we should still keep it front-of-mind: universities have devolved from faculty-led partnerships into administrative command-and-control structures that serve bureaucratic interests rather than educational ones. From 1976 to 2018, they write, while student enrollment grew 78%, administrative staff increased by a staggering 164% - with "other professionals" ballooning by 452%. This administrative bloat has driven up costs, diluted academic focus, and created an environment hostile to intellectual diversity.

The typical reform approach - hiring a crusading university president as savior - is destined to fail without substantial structural changes. As Terjesen and Ryall write, "The strategy of hiring a 'white knight' university president to impose change from the top is not a recipe for success." This is because the lone reformer faces entrenched resistance from administrators who benefit from the status quo, faculty committees designed to obstruct change, and students ready to protest any disruption of the customer-service model they've come to expect. Universities are simply not set up like corporations where the CEO has "monarchical" power over the institution.

Instead, the authors propose a three-stage reform strategy requiring sustained board commitment:

Stage I demands aggressive leadership realignment, starting at the top. Reform-minded boards must rapidly replace unaligned senior administrators with mission-aligned leaders who understand that success means "making efficient use of resources to equip students with the essential knowledge and cognitive skills" needed for their vocations. With these university-level leaders in place, attention shifts to aligning deans and department chairs.

Stage II focuses on administrative downsizing. The authors assert that "administrative payroll at most universities can be cut by 50%, with no noticeable degradation in performance and likely a substantial improvement," which is surely right. They point that the idea isn't to make remaining staff work harder, but rather to eliminate unnecessary activities that have accumulated over decades.

Stage III involves returning universities to the faculty partnership model that served them well for centuries. This requires selecting the right faculty for administrative roles and creating incentives for top scholars to share in governance - establishing skin in the game for those with disciplinary expertise.

What makes this blueprint valuable is its "organizational jujitsu" approach. Rather than battling the existing bureaucratic structure, it temporarily leverages the board's organizational powers to establish reform momentum before transitioning back to faculty governance. The authors rightly observe that one-dimensional approaches won't work - "abolishing tenure, eliminating diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, or hiring a white-knight president are not up to the task."

University dysfunction took decades to develop and will require years of determined effort to correct. The brief acknowledges the unique character of universities while insisting they fulfill their core missions of advancing knowledge and equipping students with essential skills. The path is challenging, but as Terjesen and Ryall conclude, "To achieve that goal will require passion, grit, and long-term vision."

A key component that is missing is the impact of the Federal government, on which universities are dependent. The Trump Administration should ensure that federal funds, and possibly maintenance of tax-exempt status, is contingent on adopting such plans, and tying them to reductions in tuition.

Policy News You Need To Know

#Immigration — "A constitutional battle is imminent as the federal government challenges sanctuary jurisdictions over their non-compliance with Sections 1373 and 1644 of Title 8 of the U.S. Code." CIS has more.

#LaResistance — Politico reports that the country's 23 Democratic state attorneys general see themselves as the new resistance and "hold a 30-minute virtual chat every day to coordinate their efforts." Good luck with that.

#BuildBabyBuild — Interesting article from Josh T Smith on building more energy capacity on Federal lands.

#DEI — Interesting from WaPo: the Supreme Court is set to hear a case from a white person claiming discrimination on the basis of race. Her case challenges "rulings requiring members of majority groups to meet a higher bar to prove job discrimination than groups that traditionally face bias." Given that DEI is de facto set to discriminate against whites (and Asians, but a much smaller number of Asians are affected in absolute terms), allowing whites to sue for discrimination would end the DEI regime perhaps as well as any legislation or EO. Also, we were stunned to learn that "members of majority groups" must "meet a higher bar to prove job discrimination."

#DOGE #USAID — First significant win by the Trump Administration in the war by some district court judges to hamper its actions. Turns out there was no need to ignore Federal rulings. Last night, Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts handed out a discussion dismissing a deadline imposed by a district court judge to keep spending USAID money. This is just a short-term decision, and it looks like the Supreme Court will review the whole matter en banc.

#DOGE — Federal agencies have been issued a directive to submit "suggestions" by mid-April of where they could relocate outside the DC region.

#DOGE #EPA — You may have seen a striking report that the EPA plans to lay off 65% of staff. The White House later clarified that it's 65% of spending that's supposed to be cut.

#Trade #TheEconomy — Don Boudreaux, a libertarian economics professor who your correspondent finds particularly endearing because of his habit of writing letters to the editor, sets out the case for why trade deficits are good, actually.

#Woke #Academia — Interesting article from John Sailer over at City Journal about the University of California's "Postdoctoral Fellowship Program" and similar which, he charges, "serve[s] as a side-door into faculty positions, allowing admin to bypass competitive searches for social justice advocates." This is a broader problem than just California, because this program apparently serves as a model throughout the nation and is part of a broader issue which Sailer's article exposes, which is the "activist-to-academia pipeline."