Florida International University got a new president this weekend: Chancellor Mark Rosenberg. And guess what? He'll make a lot more than the last guy, Mitch Maidique. At $680,000 per year, he'll garner in excess of what you or President Obama or the heads of many multinational corporations and foreign lands.
Thing is, even as the FIU president's salary is skyrocketing -- Maidique made a paltry $630,000 -- the university is slashing majors, departments, and jobs. And it's raising tuition.
In effect, it's screwing you and me, the taxpayers, as well as the 39,000 or so students who matriculate there.
And to add insult to presidency, Ivy League-educated author and FIU professor Bruce Nissen offers the following: The place is bureaucrat-crazy.
Over the past six years, the number of administrators at the nation's 25th largest university (and probably its most Hispanic) has nearly doubled, from 377 to 742, Nissen shows in a recent paper, "How Does FIU Spend Its Money?" During the same period, the quantity of professors and those who work in the classroom -- "people who produce something," according to Nissen -- has changed by only one percent -- from 928 to 933.
And check out this number: Total tuition paid has increased by 60 percent -- and is likely to go even higher. Administrative salaries -- for "deans, associate deans, provosts, and associate provosts, the highly paid people" -- have doubled.
"They just keep diverting more and more money to administrative overload," Nissen says. "They wiped out entire majors in the college of engineering. They are talking about wiping out religion, dance, and fine arts. These are stunning numbers."
So far, the university leadership hasn't responded to the study, which was sponsored by a union that includes the professors. A call to FIU Associate Vice President Tonja Moore, who Nissen said is working on a response, wasn't returned.