Use of education finance data is ubiquitous. Yet, because the academic calendar circumscribes two calendar years, researchers have linked the Consumer Price Index (CPI) to three different dates: fall, spring, and academic fiscal years. We demonstrate that linking the CPI to these different academic years results in identifying different trends in…

Student fees make up 20% of the total cost of tuition and fees at the typical four-year public, yet little research has been conducted to examine institutional-level and state-level factors that may affect student fee charges. I use panel data to find that institutional selectivity and athletics spending do not influence student fee levels.…

This study investigates the economic impact of a "turnaround" school on real property values in its surrounding community as related to the argument introduced by Tiebout in 1956 correlating local public goods, in this case school success, to housing-location decision making. Using single-family home sales found on the Multiple Listing System and…

This study presents and analyzes the findings of a 2012 survey of member libraries belonging to the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) about publishers' large journal bundles and compares the results to earlier surveys. The data illuminate five research questions: market penetration, journal bundle construction, collection format shifts,…

District costs for teachers' health insurance are, on average, higher then employer costs for private-sector professionals. How much of this is attributable to collective bargaining? This article examines the question using data from the National Compensation Survey (NCS) of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) and the state of Wisconsin. In…

In this paper, I use Levin and McEwan's (2001) cost feasibility approach and personnel data obtained from the Superintendent of Public Instruction to estimate the cost of providing coaching support to every newly hired principal in Washington State. Based on this descriptive analysis, I estimate that the cost to provide leadership coaching to…

In this paper we review recent increases in tuition at public institutions and estimate impacts on enrollment. We use data on all U.S. public 4-year colleges and universities from 1991 to 2006 and illustrate that tuition increased dramatically beginning in the early part of this decade. We examine impacts of such increases on total enrollment and…

Purpose/Objectives: Schools that participate in the National School Lunch Program (NSLP) receive a portion of their annual federal funding as commodity entitlement foods--now called USDA Foods--rather than cash payments. Due to rising food prices in recent years, it has been recommended that schools compare the costs and benefits of commodity and…

How do salaries of elementary and middle school principals compare with those of other administrators and classroom teachers? Are increases in salaries of principals keeping pace with increases in salaries of classroom teachers? How have principals' salaries fared over the years when the cost of living is taken into account? There are reliable…

Indexing is a tool that can be used with longitudinal, quantitative data for analysis of relative changes and for comparisons of changes among items. For greater accuracy, raw financial data should be deflated into constant dollars prior to indexing. This paper demonstrates the procedures for indexing, statistical deflation, and the use of…

Development of precise and usable information on the financial operations of day care centers has been hampered by a lack of definition of types of programs and units of service, and confusion in comparing prices and costs. This article reports on the testing of a system of financial reporting and cost analysis, applied to 29 day care centers and…

The Higher Education Finance Manual (HEFM) is intended to serve as a guide to higher education planners and managers in their understanding and use of institutional finance data. It addresses higher education finance data from the layman's perspective. The document includes definitions of accounting terms and descriptions of generally accepted…

The applicability and validity of NCHEMS' Information Exchange Procedures (IEP) to major research universities are examined. IEP enables peer institutions to compare information about their resources. Evaluation of the IEP costing methods are examined in this document, which is intended as an appendix to "Evaluation of the IEP Costing…

This report discusses use of the Consumer Price Index (CPI) to compute cost-of-living adjustments for wages and salaries in general and teachers' salaries in particular. A number of tables and graphs compare average annual salary increases for Connecticut teachers in 1967-74 with annual increases in the national CPI, the Boston area CPI, the New…

The current efforts of the Association of American Medical Colleges to test the feasibility of broadening the application, utility, and scope of the cost-finding studies conducted by many academic health centers and individual schools of the health professions are examined. The current effort is an outgrowth of the existing foundations of cost…