Troy Nehls Calls ‘Severe Administrative Bloat’ At Elite Universities A ‘Vast, Useless’ Bureaucracy

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During a House Judiciary Committee hearing on Wednesday, Rep. Troy Nehls (R-TX) spoke about ‘administrative bloat’ at elite universities.

Transcript

00:00Thank you. I yield my five minutes to Mr. Neils from Texas.

00:06Thank you, Ms. Hageman. Thank you for our witnesses taking the time to be here.

00:11As we've already discussed, the tuition rates at self-proclaimed elite universities have ballooned over the years

00:18due to long-standing collusion between them, long-standing collusion.

00:22This has allowed these schools to accumulate the kind of severe administrative bloat

00:28rarely seen outside of our own federal government.

00:33As Dr. Cooper testified, Ivy League universities average one non-instructional staff per two students.

00:40How do you like that ratio?

00:42Yet the average private university gets by with one-third the administrative staff.

00:47And much like we see in the federal government at some point, bureaucracies, they get so big, fat, bloated

00:54that they serve no real purpose other than to justify their own existence.

01:01If these elite universities have one administrative employee for every two students,

01:05then what exactly are they employed to do?

01:08Well, one of our witnesses, Mr. Alex Hage, decided to ask.

01:12Great question, Alex.

01:14Pursuant to his work as a student journalist investigating administrative bloat at Brown,

01:19Mr. Hage emailed all 3,805 non-faculty employees of the university to inquire about what their

01:27job entail, right?

01:29Rather than simply respond to the inquiry, Brown chose to initiate disciplinary proceedings

01:34against Mr. Hage.

01:36I was so appalled when I heard about this that I wrote a letter to Brown urging them to reverse

01:41course.

01:41I believe our fearless leader, Chairman Jordan, in the committee, they wrote a letter.

01:45And Brown reversed course, and I'm glad they did.

01:49It's one thing to create a vast, useless administrative bureaucracy to justify an exorbitant tuition rate

01:56of $93,000.

01:59But to punish a student journalist for daring to ask a question about it is unacceptable.

02:04Mr. Hage, what first prompted you to make the inquiry?

02:08That's an excellent question.

02:09So Brown has a $46 million budget shortfall.

02:13Even while charging students the price of a luxury car.

02:17And it doesn't seem like they want to cut any administrators.

02:21They're having hiring freezes, but they're not willing to cut any jobs.

02:24So I thought this was something that needed to be looked into.

02:26Why do you think the employees at your email, they didn't answer your questions?

02:30Many of them didn't respond?

02:31Well, some of them answered, and the ones who answered seem to have pretty useful jobs.

02:34So I guess we can maybe infer that the ones who didn't have jobs that are not so important.

02:38The ones that didn't were too embarrassed.

02:40They were too embarrassed.

02:41They weren't going to respond to you.

02:43Why do you think elite schools like Brown might be more frugal in administrative spending

02:48if they had to pay the same 21% tax rate on their endowment profits as corporations?

02:54Certainly.

02:55I mean, when you have to pay higher taxes, there's less money floating around,

02:58and you've got to tighten the budget.

02:59Now, that's beautiful.

03:00We put it in reconciliation now.

03:02So these universities, it's 1.4.

03:04Now it's going to go to 21%.

03:0621%.

03:07I'm so excited that that legislation was in our reconciliation.

03:11How about you, Dr. Cooper?

03:13What do you think?

03:14I think that the 21% tax on endowments will probably induce some belt tightening among these

03:20Ivy League institutions.

03:21And I would also note that the tax is structured such that if you expand your enrollment, you

03:25face a lower tax rate.

03:27And that might be an inducement that some of these colleges need to actually admit more

03:30qualified students from middle-income backgrounds.

03:32Well, let me be clear.

03:33We're not actually taxing the endowment itself.

03:35It's the net profits, the earnings on their investments.

03:39And we're expecting $7 to $10 billion annually.

03:42$7 to $10 billion?

03:43It's a big deal.

03:45Mr. Cooper, the average four-year private university costs around $35,000 per student,

03:51while the Ivy Leagues average $126,000.

03:53To what degree is administrative bloat attributed to this?

03:57I can't imagine that most of that extra $126,000 in spending per student is really going to

04:03benefit students.

04:04What we see is much higher administrator-to-student ratios at Ivy League institutions than other

04:09private colleges.

04:11Thank you, Ms. Hageman.

04:12Mr. Chair, are you back?

04:13The gentleman yields back, and the gentleman from-

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