B.S. economics: while cash-strapped universities cut teachers, classes, and whole departments, they're ignoring all those managers in the Office of Public Relations.

• Author: Wagner, Betsy

Yale and Washington University in St. Louis don't have a whole lot in common-that is, until you look at their ledgers, Last year, both universities laid plans to lop off entire academic departments to help keep the rest of the ship afloat. But their club didn't remain exclusive for long. Columbia, Stanford, and San Diego State University, among others, are also likely to cut academic programs in upcoming years to make up for huge deficits.

The recession has shown up on campuses around the country and settled in alongside the class of '96. Tuitions are up, profs scarcer, and classes larger. The average cost of a four-year private college increased 7 percent this fall to a record $10,498. At public schools, the increase was 10 percent, and during the last decade annual fees at public four-year colleges soared, from an average of $738 to $1,880. Meanwhile, the return on the investment dwindled: Last fall, half of all four-year public universities surveyed by the American Council on Education increased introductory class sizes and reduced the number of courses or sections offered. The result? Fewer students are able to get enough credits to graduate on time, and those forced to stay longer must pay more.

Angry about the trend, students and their families are demanding to know where the money goes. The official answer administrators give is that universities are "labor intensive." They are, of course, but this response also masks one of the dirtiest little secrets on campus today: Despite rising costs and shrinking resources, many more people are making a living off colleges and universities now than 10 years ago. And most of these new people don't deal directly with students at all.

A 1990 Department of Education study shows that between 1975 and 1985, while the nation's total number of four-year students increased by only 7 percent, the number of non-academic "professionals" at colleges and universities --a category that includes such pillars of academe as accountants, lawyers, and systems analysts--increased by an astounding 61 percent. During the same period, the number of full-time faculty members increased by only 6 percent. And as it was for bodies, so it was for dollars. In the eighties, administrative budgets grew 26 percent faster than did those for faculty. Nevertheless, administrators are now busily panng where they should cut last--the classroom--instead of turning the shears on the real area of excessive growth: themselves.

Dollarship

Consider the crowd that has assembled in recent years in the president's office at George...