The Devil is in the Memes

If standards agencies were run like higher education, the meter would now be less than a yard (about 5% less).¹

If the Prime Minister (£142,500/yr) were paid like the average University VC (£235,000/yr), he would be making around £681 Million/yr.²

If cafes were like higher education, they would have more than one person standing around for everyone serving you coffee (not people standing around when they should be serving coffee but standing around to manage, administer, and provide support).³

Footnotes:

1) Between 1995 and 2013 the proportion of 2.1 and firsts increased by about 14% according to the data here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grade_inflation. Yes, it is wikipedia...

... but this article says there may have been grade inflation in first class degrees: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/universityeducation/9792964/Number-of-first-class-degrees-has-tripled-since-late-90s.html.

... and this article thinks so too: http://www.independent.co.uk/student/student-life/why-are-so-many-more-firsts-being-awarded-than-ever-before-8456150.html

 

... and this article documents that at Cambridge the first class degree proportion grew from about 10% in 1960 to 22% in 2005. During that time the proportion of 2.1 degrees increased from 24% to 50% in the same period. 

There are always doubters.There are claims that when controlled for A-level grades little or no inflation has occurred (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-25811702) ...

... not that there was any grade inflation in A-levels! No never...  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-23695270. 

2) Assume that the average VC serves a population of 20,000 students. This means that a VC gets about £11.75/student. The Prime Minister serves a population of about 58 million people. At £11.75/person that is about £681 million a year. The PM may be underpaid. 

3) Academic staff make up 47.5% of the UK HE sectors employees. People on hourly paid and zero hours contracts were not included in that statistic. Data are here: http://www.ecu.ac.uk/publications/files/equality-in-he-stats-report-2012-staff.pdf .

Note: this is not a UK only phenomenon. See for instance: 

http://chronicle.com/article/Administrative-Bloat-How-Much/135500/
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-11-14/bureaucrats-paid-250-000-feed-outcry-over-college-costs.html