Klaich: We're not fat, we're big boned
News 4 in Reno lets Chancellor Dan Klaich get the last word in on university bloat, which is unfortunate, because I had such a good comeback line.
Klaich claims, accurately, that UNR and UNLV are less bloated and more efficient with staffing than other universities. NPRI has never disputed that.
But like almost all universities, UNLV and UNR have been dramatically increasing the size of staff - specifically, highly paid non-educators (whom NSHE does not want to call "administrators"). In fact, UNLV and UNR are increasing the number of highly paid non-educators faster than the student body.
Worse still, they've increased the number of employees per student and the dollars per student, but neither UNLV nor UNR can graduate 50 percent of its students after six years.
But back to Klaich's bragging about the bloat - or non-bloat, as he see's it.
Is being more efficient than the average four-year university really something to celebrate? As I told Victoria Campbell from News 4, what Klaich is doing is akin to "bragging about being 150 pounds overweight instead of 200 pounds."
There is still a lot of work to be done - namely, graduating educated students rather than providing university jobs for adults.
