https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2016/04/11/annual-aaup-s...
And it wasn't just absolute, it was relative to teacher/student ratios and tenured positions growth and educator wage increase.
"A Top-Heavy Administration? By DAVID H. HUBEL January 31, 2012 17 In 1958, Stephen Kuffler was invited to come from Johns Hopkins Medical School to Harvard Medical School to become a full professor in the Department of Pharmacology. He brought with him four post-doctoral fellows: Torsten Wiesel, Ed Furshpan, David Potter, and myself. Along with Ed Kravitz, we formed the nucleus that led to the founding of the Department of Neurobiology five years later.
When we arrived, Harvard Medical School was directed by one dean—George Parker Berry. He was assisted by a genius, Henry Meadow, who joined HMS in 1950 as executive secretary to the Committee on Research and Development. The two of them ran the whole school. Berry was grouchy and firm-handed and what he said was law.
....
you should see the list of FAS administrators. My printout runs to over 16 pages. I haven't counted up the various kinds of FAS deans, but the list dwarfs that of the Medical School. "
http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2012/1/31/david-hubel-harv...
Which positions do you think could be eliminated or merged?
Many universities actually manage to lose money on federally funded research, as the amount of compliance work required to maintain grant funding actually outstrips the overhead rates.
And yes, I've seen the overhead rates that universities are charging lately, and I agree they're absurd. Yet somehow it's still not enough.
[1] Karen A. Holbrook and Paul R. Sanberg. Understanding the High Cost of Success in University Research. http://www.uh.edu/af/docs/IDC/TIarticle.pdf
Especially when one considers that overhead rates are also the things that fund faculty startup packages and capital improvements.
Professors take that pay cut for academic freedom, the ability to control their own lives and think independently, and to be part of an intellectual community.
It is common for academic medical doctors to earn two to three times less than doctors in private practice. (i.e. 50% to 33% of private practice physicians. For example, an intensivist can make $500k+ in some private hospitals and normally makes $200-250k in an academic setting.)