U-M Admin Bloat: Better Late Than Never

The controversy surrounding the University of Minnesota’s administrative bloat finally spilled over onto the news pages of the Minneapolis Star Tribune, nearly two weeks after the Wall Street Journal published a front page exposé on the University’s national-leading administrative overstaffing.

To date, the controversy had played out only on the Op-Ed pages of Minnesota’s leading daily, with dueling pieces appearing from a Washington Post columnist and the president of Minnesota’s flagship public university, Eric Kaler.

Today, the Star Tribune reported on demands from two leading state senators for more information on the U’s administrative costs.  The U is requesting an 8.4 percent increase in taxpayer funding from the state legislature.  Granting that request was complicated by the unflattering report in a major, national newspaper.

The Star Tribune’s article, appearing on page B2 of the paper, reads like a dispatch on some faraway dustup, not an unfolding controversy taking place in the heart of its circulation area.  A reader not familiar with the original Journal story would be left with the impression that the biggest problem was seeing “the state's flagship university the subject of critical coverage on a national scale.”  We have quotes from the state senators and the U’s President Kaler, but nothing from a student or parent not getting value for tuition money or a put upon taxpayer having to fund hundreds of six-figure, make-work jobs.

In contrast, on page B3, the Star Tribune covers the approval of two sand mines in neighboring Wisconsin.  The sand produced at the facilities would be used by petroleum companies in drilling using the controversial hydraulic fracturing  (fracking) technique.  Here the paper found room to quote project opponents and appeared to include some original reporting and interviews.  The story is part of the paper’s continuing series:  "Frac Sand Fever".

To be sure, there are legitimate concerns about the environmental, social, and economic impacts of these frac sand facilities.  But the sheer numbers and dollar amounts involved in the U’s administrative budget will have a greater impact on the state’s citizenry and its economic competitiveness.  As one of Minnesota’s leading institutions, what happens at the U impacts all of the state.

So why the differing treatment of the two stories?  In a word:  narrative.  The state’s elites have already concluded that the government has “underinvested” in the U, going back (pick your time frame) 10, 20, 50 years.  An increase in the higher education budget was a foregone conclusion before the specter of out-of-state critical media coverage appeared.  The whole affair is something that needs to be quietly buried, lest it upset the natural order.

The frac sand battle, however, is another matter entirely.  The issue is on everyone's list of the hot-button subjects that Minnesota’s Democrat governor and the Democrat-controlled state legislature will tackle in 2013.  Frac sand fits into the larger battle over climate change and environmental protection.  Admin bloat at the U merely raises uncomfortable questions about the competence of a key constituency within the New Coalition of Elites.