STANFORD ALUMNI
FOR FREE SPEECH AND
CRITICAL THINKING

 

January 5, 2026

 

The National Movement to Trim Higher Ed Bloat

 

Excerpts (links in the original):

 

“Americans don't agree on much these days, but we all seem to agree that higher education in our country is broken. The good news is that we may now see the beginning of a nationwide movement to make higher education a better investment for students and help prepare them for life after school.

 

“Since the 1990s, we have seen an explosion in the cost of college driven by a growth in administrators and virtually endless government-backed debt. Continued increases in enrollments allowed even state schools to create classes and even entire majors for which there was absolutely no job market."...

 

Full op-ed at Real Clear Education, including a link to “Administrative Bloat at U.S. Colleges Is Skyrocketing” at Forbes (August 28, 2023):

 

“. . . Why have administrative positions exploded? There are several reasons, including greater student demand for services, the growing number of accreditors, government regulations, and the natural tendency for administrators to solve most problems with -- you guessed it -- more administrators.

 

“This massive increase in personnel never could have happened without the growing availability of federal aid and student loans (albeit any corresponding constraints on costs). But given the rapidly deteriorating fiscal condition of the federal government, and the recent decision by the Supreme Court on loan forgiveness, the likelihood of a major expansion in tuition assistance (or full-scale student loan bailout) seems unlikely in the near future.

 

“With no market or regulatory forces to contain the reckless spending behavior of colleges and universities, school presidents have focused on fundraising, not good management. But starting [now], they will need to learn quickly how to streamline administrative costs, or be replaced by a new generation of school leaders who do.”

 

See also, with respect to Stanford specifically, “Warning Signs in the Numbers” at our Stanford Concerns webpage and where, among other things, Stanford went from approximately 2,800 managerial and supervisory personnel in the year 2000 to nearly 13,000 such personnel by the year 2022 (an increase of approximatelly 10,000) while the faculty increased by only 400 during that same period of time (see the graph at the top of the Stanford Concerns webpage). As also shown at the Stanford Concerns webpage, Stanford currently has the highest number of business and finance staff of any U.S. university (even for schools with triple the enrollment) and the highest administrative costs per student of any U.S. university. And yet Stanford has among the worst student-faculty ratios and among the worst participation of alumni donors as compared to its top-ranked peers.

 

While it's true that Stanford's wealth and prestige may insulate it from competitive pressures, that wealth and prestige can also mask problems that both the administration and the trustees may need to finally address.

 

To quote management guru Peter Drucker, “Tomorrow is being made today, irrevocably in most cases.”

 

A Black Box of Overhead Spending and Academia’s Mission Creep

from Rigorous Science

 

Excerpts (footnotes deleted):

 

“American universities are falling short of their mission to push the limits of scientific discovery and prepare students for the workforce, often while raking in hundreds of millions of dollars a year in federal research and development grants....

 

“Overhead funds are meant to go toward university and department infrastructure, but recent reports have suggested exorbitant overhead spending feeds into bloated university administrations that distract from academic inquiry....

 

“This report examines research and overhead funds granted to five universities over ten years, along with the growth of administration and, in particular, DEI-related positions. The impact of broader impact requirements embedded in grant proposals is also explored.

 

“The results will demonstrate that universities are undermining their former commitments to true scientific endeavor in research, in favor of building ever more new administrative functions and special projects.” ...

 

[Followed by a detailed analysis of Rutgers and the universities of Illinois, Michigan, North Carolina and Virginia.]

 

Full report, including graphs and charts, can be downloaded at Open the Books.

 

See also “Warning Signs in the Numbers” at our Stanford Concerns webpage. See also Section 3 at our Back to Basics at Stanford webpage where we suggest that Stanford's administrative bureaucracy needs to be reduced significantly in both size and cost and, at Section 4, we suggest that Stanford's 200 to 300 centers, accelerators, incubators and similar entities need to be engaged primarily in front-line research and teaching supervised by tenured members of the faculty or else should be moved off campus and cease using the Stanford name.

 

The Problems of History at Harvard

 

Excerpt:

 

“At Harvard University today, professors who teach Western history are history.

 

“James Hankins, a specialist in Renaissance thought, was one of the last holdouts.

 

“Now Hankins, who has just published a hefty book that teaches what Harvard doesn't -- The Golden Thread: A History of the Western Tradition, Vol. 1 -- has decamped for the University of Florida's Hamilton School of Classical and Civic Education.

 

“It's not the warmer weather that's drawn him away from Cambridge, Massachusetts.

 

“It's the contrast in intellectual climates: frozen and dead, where Western history is concerned, at Harvard; full of green shoots at the University of Florida.

 

“‘We have not hired with tenure a historian in a Western field -- ancient, medieval, early modern, or modern -- in a decade,’ Hankins says about his Harvard department, which in that time ‘lost eight senior historians in Western fields -- all major figures -- through death, retirement or departure for other universities. I will be the ninth, and I am not expecting to be replaced.’

 

“The loss isn't just Harvard's: ‘the replacement of Western history by global history’ has done ‘serious harm ... to the socialization of young Americans,’ the historian warns in Compact magazine.” ...

 

Full article at Real Clear Politics.

 

Harvard President Alan Garber Has Met the Moment

 

Excerpts:

. . . . 

“Harvard’s governing boards have been historically secretive, making it difficult to know whether such self-assessments occur and, if so, what they have revealed. But their decision to hand the presidential reins to Garber on an indefinite basis speaks as loudly as we can expect about their views on Harvard’s past and future directions.

 

“We should be grateful for that decision....

 

[Followed by discussion of Harvard’s working group on open inquiry and constructive dialogue, Harvard’s adoption of policies re institutional neutrality, ending the requirement for DEI statements in faculty hiring, and major reforms of Harvard’s student orientation programs.]

 

“Actions taken by schools to change programs (and program leadership) have been more controversial. When programs are judged to have strayed from the required level of scholarly rigor in favor of explicit activism, I see such decisions as within the purview of university leadership and proper governance -- and failure to prevent such straying, in the past, has often proved to be the real problem. To counter expected opposition, decisions such as these must reflect rigorous assessment, be accompanied by public explanation, and remain content-neutral, aspects that require greater clarity than exists at present....”

 

Full op-ed by Harvard professor and former medical school dean Jeffrey S. Flier at Harvard Crimson. 

 

A Utah University Gave Guest Speakers a List of Banned Words

 

Editor’s note: We have long had posted at our Stanford Concerns webpage an article about Stanford’s now discredited list of words and phrases and including a PDF copy of the words and phrases we downloaded before they were removed from Stanford’s websites and subsequently repudiated by senior Stanford administrators. In the situation described below, a Utah state university was largely copying a state law that restricts words and phrases. In our view, any such restrictions -- whether for conservative or progressive purposes -- are inappropriate and especially in a campus environment.

 

Excerpts:

 

“After she agreed to give a book talk at Weber State University, Darcie Little Badger was sent a document titled ‘Speaker Information Request.’ It asked Little Badger for personal and logistical information, all fairly standard for a guest speaker, but at the bottom of the page there was something unusual: a list of banned words and phrases.

 

“The document cited HB 261, a bill targeting diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts that passed the Utah State Senate in July 2024. The bill prohibits diversity training and statements in higher education, among other provisions. It includes several of the prohibited words Weber State passed along to Little Badger but does not apply them to speech on campus....

 

“The university has a page on its website dedicated to frequently asked questions about HB 261, and one question asks how the law will affect speakers. The university answers: ‘Under current university and Board of Higher Education policy, the university is charged to provide the opportunity for a plurality of speakers to engage an array of viewpoints. HB 261 affirms that directive and the university will be reviewing its processes for creating those forums for speakers on campus.’ ...

 

““The people who champion this type of censorship,” [Little Badger] said, ‘I think they’re afraid of difference.’”

 

Full article at Chronicle of Higher Education. 

 

Other Articles of Interest

 

The Campus ‘Vibe Shift’ Is an Illusion

Full op-ed by Stanford alum and Sarah Lawrence Prof. Samuel J. Abrams at Washington Examiner. 

 

Push for Censorship on Campus Hit Record Levels in 2025

Full op-ed at Real Clear Education: “We need courage: from faculty, from students, and especially from administrators. It’s easy to defend speech when it’s popular. It’s harder when the ideas are offensive or inconvenient. But that’s when it matters most.”

  

American Graduates Need Not Apply

A senior partner at a large U.S. company admits corporations will skirt H-1B restrictions, leaving American graduates behind.

Full article at Minding the Campus.

 

College Rankings Are Flawed, but City Journal’s New Alternative System Only Compounds the Problems

Full op-ed at Real Clear Education. See also explanation of the rankings at City Journal, an interactive version of the actual rankings (Stanford ranks #18) here and with a more detailed discussion of Stanford's strengths and concerns here.

 

Why We Care -- Samples of Current Teaching, Research and

Other Activities at Stanford 

 

Click on each article for direct access; selections are from Stanford Report and other Stanford websites.

 

Intriguing Innovations at Stanford in 2025

  

Stanford Medical School's Scientific Advancements in 2025

 

Stanford Law School’s End-of-Year Reading List

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