> Maybe it's not for Harvard consumption, but auditioning for a Conservative internship?

Or maybe the author was genuinely disturbed by the inequalities and racism currently being perpetuated by said administrative bloat, similar to how Snowden was disturbed by the behavior of the US government?

The fact that you see this situation only in terms of personal gain is disturbing

Ah yes, good ol’ bureaucratic retribution for questioning the bureaucracy. If Harvard administrators give this student a harder time because of the piece they wrote, aren’t they proving the students point, to a certain extent?

Also, how would this be connected to conservative ideas? Theoretically, liberal ideas are the ideas that are critical of institutions. This all seems so backwards, no?

Liberals being critical of institutions hasn't been popular for a long time (1960s anti-war, pro-free speech, etc was long ago)... unless it's businesses. Government/schools are sacred cows.

The ideology has for a long time been pro-top-heavy administrative approach to running society. It's probably no mistake the most stereotypical liberal institution we have are the most top-heavy orgs in society.

Conservative is how I'd expect them to self-identify, and I capitalized it because that seemed more diplomatic than putting it in quotes.

But the protester is not wrong.

Now there are all kinds of non-core administrators very ancillary to education whose job is to keep busy having people do things that are again, not core to education/academics.

Yes, they should cut the fat. Yes that will eliminate make-work jobs. That's the whole point.

Look at all these jobs and compare against admin jobs in the 1980s: https://www.higheredjobs.com/admin/

I think these questions about growth of university administration are already familiar political talking points.

I'm more interested in the intent of a Harvard Government major (and nominal editor), in saying this, and in how they said it.

Maybe they are frustrated that everyone knows this is an issue but it continues to grow none the less so they are taking it upon themselves to speak truth to power. In other words they want someone to take notice and take steps to address the issue at this center of learning and better yet at all centers of learning.

> Maybe it's not for Harvard consumption, but auditioning for a Conservative internship?

This. Or they're planning to drop out and get a job in the Thiel universe.

Given their proposed solution, I suspect you're right

With that said, this is definitely a problem even to people on the left.

Universities are now run by administrators for the purposes of securing more funds and less for teaching and research.

Are you suggesting newspaper writers should self-censor for their own self-interest?

Good point: "know your place".

> Knock on every office door and fire anyone who does not provide significant utility to the institution.

This line in particular betrays a lack of working experience. Anybody who has worked at all in their life - even a basic highschool carwash job, knows how hard it is to appropriately identify which employees to let go in an unbiased manner. It's not as simple as knocking on a door and asking them what they do (despite Elon Musk using this method recently at Twitter)

Yeah that'll end up getting you the people who are good at bragging.