In a 2024 piece penned in The Washington Post, Pomona economics professor Gary Smith presented a satirical “modest proposal” in response to Pomona’s administrative bloat. The punchline? A call for the college to rid itself of all faculty and students at Pomona, instead fulfilling its destiny as an institution that serves to employ and uplift non-teaching administrators.
According to calculations from his piece, from 1990 to 2024, the number of students has increased by 17 percent, with the number of administrators increasing nearly sixfold. During the period, Pomona’s professor-to-administrator ratio plummeted from 3.21 to 0.56. That incredible growth isn’t a result of student need, but of an unchecked bureaucratic expansion.
A clear price of this endless expansion is the continually rising costs of college. In 2025-26, Pomona’s tuition rose by five percent from $65,000 per year to $68,000 per year. But the college’s financial struggles do not end there. On campus, budget shortfalls have impacted students with budget cuts in academic departments, leaving many student liaisons to work without pay, as well as less funding for important student-led programs like On the Loose (OTL).
As Pomona continues to slash funding from student groups, one source of funding continues to rise: administration.
While Pomona justifiably lauds its generous financial aid and boasts an endowment exceeding $3 billion, it simultaneously spends a staggering amount of its resources on an ever-expanding administrative apparatus. This rise is funding deans and additional staff whose salaries sometimes match or exceed those of faculty. An oversized administration can siphon power from instructors and researchers who are core to Pomona’s mission of education and research.
Liberal arts colleges like Pomona pride themselves on facilitating close relationships through small class sizes, dedicated professors and intellectual mentorship. Yet, as administrative offices assume roles once held by professors — like helping students explore their interests, resolve conflicts and build community — they distance students and faculty while simultaneously disempowering faculty from helping students.
It goes without saying that organizational infrastructure is necessary to run a college effectively and inclusively. These budgetary changes are not all in service of bureaucracy, and our community has benefited from adopting cultural, political and community responsibilities, as evidenced by Pomona’s Draper Center and Pomona College Community Engagement Center.
To bridge gaps in equity and fulfill the college’s role in this regard necessitates some forms of administrative oversight. But at a certain point, administrative growth becomes a burden, not a benefit. Like any industry, higher education reaches diminishing returns when investments cease to improve outcomes. Excess administrators often take on redundant roles, begetting further bureaucratic oversight and administration and siphoning away important funds from the college.
At Pomona, it’s hard to argue we haven’t reached that point. Since 2008, the number of non-instructional professional administrators has increased by roughly 69 percent despite the fact that the number of students at the college hasn’t dramatically increased. Nor has the six-year graduation rate, nor has the number of instructional staff, nor has the average financial aid package size as a proportion of tuition. In other words, there is no measurable academic gain to justify this bloat.
As the federal government escalates its financial and political war on higher education, Professor Smith’s modest proposal becomes more relevant than ever. Pomona needs to make a choice: Will it become a bureaucratic institution for administrators, or remain a college dedicated to education?
The answer is not to construct costly bureaucratic fortresses in response to the federal government. It’s to be fiscally responsible, and to instead redirect funding to students who rely on financial aid and underpaid faculty, groups vulnerable to reckless government actions and ought to be protected.
Shrinking the administrative apparatus will take strong leadership from the top and a recognition that an overgrown administration undermines the core mission of the college. Ironically, it will take administrative courage to rein in administrative excess. Hopefully, Pomona will return academic control back to the faculty who are closest to the learning and education process.
This will be a difficult shift, but one that is essential to ensuring Pomona’s success in a murky future for American higher education.
Eric Lu PO ‘28 is a first-year at Pomona College from Salt Lake. He enjoys playing tennis, skiing and exploring LA.
Facebook Comments