This may be an example of a counting problem reinforcing a moral panic. A shrinking fraction (now well under half) of college teaching is done by professors. Most of it is done by temporary adjuncts, who are counted as staff. Thus the professor-to-staff ratio is not a good metric of teaching activity.

I live near a major university, and a lot of my friends and relatives are academics, including adminstrators. I was an adjunct teacher for a semester, long ago.

> Most of it is done by temporary adjuncts, who are counted as staff

This was not the case in my time/place - our adjuncts were all counted under the professors bucket, not admin. Grad students teaching classes (as I was at the time), were not counted in either bucket.