Well, but it misses the obvious: education is not a profit center for colleges. Crazy dorms are. Athletic centers are. Food court cafeterias are. All three of these require more staff without increasing education one iota. However, they attract students more effectively than "lots of professors." Not to mention the sports teams. Everyone I know who works at a college has been in a deep hiring freeze for years. I think it's a little disingenuous to fish back to 1987, considering the real epoch was 1993-2007.
kb, I totally agree and I have said as much in other threads about problems with universities and colleges. As for the time frame, I wasn't so sure about that, as my parents and many of their friends started working at colleges and universities in the '80's and I've never really heard them talk about the hiring climate at the time to be particularly difficult. That said, I went to college with this guy and I feel like posting an article or two of his is a low effort way to throw the guy some support.
It used to be hella easier, I think. My brother-in-law is tenure-track and I think he tried at like 60 places before he ended up where he is. Another friend is a sysop for a school I went to. He's been there since 1999. They've been under a hiring freeze since 2006... ...but the provost just approved pay raises for faculty.
Dang, that's so many. I do wonder how the situation will turn out over time though, especially since I'm from New England, which as you know has a shitload of schools in a small area (the North East in general) and not a whole lot of industry that is wholly unrelated to schools. The Scandinavian countries are pushing really hard to gain recognition and to pull in a lot of international students but I don't think they're very competitive except for engineering and some of the sciences, but as the century progresses, who knows?