Schools might go tuition-free if their endowment-fund managers simply invested on this inventory index

Last year, I proposed a straightforward solution to the crisis in higher education: Phase out teachers and students as colleges transition from educating students to helping administrators move up the administrator ladder.

Administrators decide whether to hire administrators or faculty — and it is not surprising that they prioritize themselves. From 1990 to 2022 (the most recent data I have), the number of tenured and tenure-track professors at my school, Pomona College, declined to 175 from 180 while the number of administrators (deans, associate deans, assistant deans and the like, not counting clerical staff, cleaners and so on) increased to 310 from 56. (The college’s administration has stopped making this information publicly available. We can guess why.)