Tuition aside, UMd. defends administrative costs

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University of Maryland officials defended the university system against charges that high administrative costs are responsible for big tuition increases.

"This notion that our staff is overpaid or we are overburdened with staff is simply untrue," said Clifford Kendall, chairman of the University System of Maryland Board of Regents.

"We have less administrators than almost everybody in our peer group," Mr. Kendall said Thursday. "As for salaries, our salaries are competitive with the people we compete with to get good people in their fields."

Mr. Kendall's comments came at the first meeting of a committee created by House Speaker Michael E. Busch, Anne Arundel Democrat, to study problems with affordability and access to public colleges in Maryland. Tuition has increased sharply in the past two years, and another increase is planned for next year as a result of reductions in state aid for higher education.

Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr., who has been criticized for cutting aid to colleges in this year's budget, has challenged college administrators to take a closer look at salaries and workloads as a way of cutting costs.

As committee members arrived for the hearing on the College Park campus, they were greeted by students who agreed with those critics who say the university system spends too much money on administration.

"The real problem here is the oversized bureaucracy," junior Bryan Shuy said. University officials have acted irresponsibly in approving huge salary increases for some in administration, he said.

One salary that caught the eye of some committee members in a chart handed out by Mr. Shuy was the 126 percent increase between 1998 and 2003 in the compensation paid to the president of the University of Maryland University College.

William E. Kirwan, chancellor of the university system, attributed the increase to the hiring of a new president and the necessity of paying a competitive salary to attract the best possible candidate for the job.