Stories like this that critically report on university administrators are all too rare in the United States, especially in college towns.

According to today's Bakersfield Californian, the University of California paid over 2OOK each in annual salaries to over two thousand employees. Of course, a"spokesman" for the administrative elite has responded with the usual bureaucratic doubletalk about how these inflated salaries fit into a grand masterplan of"targeted strategic investments."

The University of California paid 2,275 employees more than $200,000 last fiscal year, up 30 percent over two years, even as the system continued to cut student services and increase fees, a newspaper reported Monday.....

Officials defended the practice, saying UC needs to be able to compete for the best faculty with other national universities. Only 1 percent of UC's full-time employees earn more than $200,000 a year, university spokesman Paul Schwartz said.

"We have had to make targeted strategic investments, even as we have taken a 15 percent cut in our state funding," Schwartz said."We still needed to ensure we attracted and retained the best people."

The number of employees making at least $300,000 annually climbed 54 percent to 496 last year, according to the newspaper....

The newspaper also reported that the UC system spends about $1 million a year to maintain large homes for its president and 10 campus chancellors.