It is fun to take in the Chronicle of Higher Education every day, because it is like reading a trade journal for an industry that knows it is in decline, along the lines of daily newspapers or buggy whip makers. Every day the Chron operates from a cringe mode about the problems of declining enrollment, financial pressures, the poor morale among DEI staff and the rising backlash against it, and above all paranoia about Gov. Ron DeSantis.

Yesterday the Chron had an especially revealing article about labor shortages in higher education. This will certainly come as bizarre news for the armies of un- and under-employed Ph.ds and adjunct instructors everywhere. But it turns out faculty hiring isn’t the main problem. Colleges are having a difficult time hiring—wait for it—administrators.

Here are some of the more amusing parts that the Chronicle is clueless about:

The challenges appear to have gotten worse for most respondents: 62 percent of college leaders who completed the survey said that hiring for staff and administrative jobs during January, February, and March had been more difficult than it was in 2022, while 32 percent said it had been about the same.

The most difficult positions to fill at universities are IT professionals. Gee—I wonder if the diversity, equity, and inclusion protocols make it difficult to hire IT staff? The article is silent and uncurious about this question.

This paragraph is also remarkable:

Many colleges are making substantive pay adjustments, according to recently released data from the College and University Professional Association for Human Resources, which found that raises in the 2022-23 academic year were the largest recorded in the last seven years. Median pay for employees increased as much as 5.3 percent for staff members. Administrators and professionals saw 4.5- and 4.4-percent median raises, respectively, while tenure-track and non-tenure-track faculty members got median bumps of 2.9 and 3.2 percent.

Let that sink in: administrators, who typically receive higher salaries than faculty at least in senior or managerial positions, got larger pay increases than faculty. Why do faculty members put up with this?