Patricia Collins, chairman of the University of Maine board of trustees, is right when she says that with university funding cuts “you can’t just go in and chop off the head of an organization and leave no one to run it …” The question for the trustees, however, is just how swelled the university’s administrative head is going to be allowed to remain.

Consultants hired by the trustees are expected in 90 days to have finished an assessment of whether and how to reduce the university administration. Surely, trustees already know how much can be cut from those offices, considering that UMaine has been slashing at other parts of the university for two years now. It’s difficult to believe, in fact, that the administration wasn’t scrutinized first for savings, before students were asked to pay more for fewer classes.

No one doubts that the university cannot keep pace with the gains it made in the 1980s, and that students will be expected to cover some of the Augusta shortfall. But administration should take the largest hit because it can do so without immediately placing the education of students in jeopardy and because it had enjoyed generous salary increases up until last year.

One administrative cut that may surprise students and faculty is the planned closing of the chancellor’s office in Augusta, for a savings of about $100,000. What should be surprising is that after the raises in tuition, reductions to staff and courses, and cuts to other services, the chancellor still had a branch office in Augusta.

The office was an important way for the university and the Legislature to keep open channels of communication, and under normal economic conditions, should remain open. But under the circumstances of the last two years, why wasn’t it cut early in the budget review?

And what other helpful but not absolutely necessary expenses in administration are being borne by the planned 15.6 percent tuition hike? The increased costs to students will ensure that many won’t be able to afford classes next year. Is this the way the state invests in its future?