- The year I started my undergrad, there a mini-scandal where tuition was raised by over 10% with little warning and it leaked that the school President, having written a heart felt letter about how hard it was cutting costs in these difficult economic times, made over $400k/yr and the college was paying his mortgage. Nearly $600k adjusted for inflation.
- At that same undergrad institution, the career services officer, responsible for finding people jobs (or at least helping), had never held a job outside of that college, and would do little more than putting your resume on Monster for you.
Just two examples from my limited academic experience (undergrad only) at one small liberal arts school nobody's ever heard of. I'm sure the graduate folks here could throw dozens of examples at you of much more egregious things.
This happens a lot at universities. They are great places to work if you're OK with an "adequate" salary (with generally very good benefits and time off) and not being held accountable for very much. So you have staff people who have worked there for decades, if not their entire careers. Often entire families (parents and eventually their children) will be working there. Those sorts of people have no understanding of what the "real world" or private sector is like, so the problem of low productivity and low accountability perpetuates itself. It's normal and they don't know anything else.
I think administrative costs have gone up too much and have space to cut back. But when articles come out saying administrative costs have ballooned 500%, I don't want people to imagine that it's all wasted - most of the new positions represent new services provided to students.
And in anticipation of the argument that "I don't need those services so they shouldn't exist": see arguments for universal healthcare even if it means raising taxes on healthy people. The whole university functions better and achieves its mission better if there is more diversity and if students have more access to services they need. Lowering tuition would be a trade-off, not just trimming fat.