Richard K Vedder, Columnist

What Do 2,358 College Administrators Do?

July 15, 2013 at 4:06 PM UTC

Richard Vedder, an economist, directs the Center for College Affordability and Productivity and teaches at Ohio University. He is an adjunct scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.

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For at least a half-century, the University of California has been considered the premier system in U.S. public higher education. The Berkeley and Los Angeles campuses always rank among the top 10 state schools, with several other UC campuses close behind.

While the nomination of Janet Napolitano, the secretary of the Homeland Security Department, as the next chancellor of the University of California may have been a surprise, it isn’t a comedown. The system has almost 240,000 students and an operating budget that exceeds $24 billion, almost triple the state budget of Arizona, for example, where Napolitano served as governor and attorney general.