Athletics are big business on many college campuses, but does this come with a price tag? This issue brief looks at academic and athletic spending in NCAA Division I public universities between 2005 and 2010. Among a host of findings, this brief shows that the athletic departments of most public colleges and universities competing in NCAA Division…

Spending by states and local school districts on school construction has increased dramatically over the last decade, not only because more and higher-quality schools are being built, but also because construction costs have increased by an unprecedented degree. Many states struggle to afford the new schools needed in local communities. The…

The aim of this study is to examine the costs and benefits of undertaking adult education courses from the perspective of the individual, using three different case studies. This will give a snapshot of the benefits and the types of costs incurred by three adult learners. Three individuals were contacted by Aontas and were asked if they would be…

Cost functions are estimated, using random effects and stochastic frontier methods, for English higher education institutions. The article advances on existing literature by employing finer disaggregation by subject, institution type and location, and by introducing consideration of quality effects. Estimates are provided of average incremental…

Econometric cost functions have begun to appear in education adequacy cases with greater frequency. Cost functions are superficially attractive because they give the impression of objectivity, holding out the promise of scientifically estimating the cost of achieving specified levels of performance from actual data on spending. By contrast, the…

This analysis of 1,200 educational research and development projects taken from the U.S. Office of Education's "Current Project Resumes, July 1970" was made to determine the crucial objectives or activities which have a direct effect on project costs, as part of the planning for the National Institute of Education. Projects were…

The analysis of costs of university activities from a functional or program point of view, rather than an organizational unit basis, is not only an imperative for the planning and management of universities, but also a logical method of examing the costs of university operations. A task force of the Committee of Finance Officers-Universities of…

Computer-assisted instruction (CAI) has not been cost-effective, despite its instructional effectiveness. This financial failure can be attributed to many factors, including: oversell of CAI capabilities, poorly authored content, expensive and unreliable hardware, an educational bureaucracy resistant to innovation, and the decentralized nature of…

Concerned with the problem of determining program costs as part of the evaluation process, this article helps the practitioner arrive at useful conceptions of the term "cost" and procedures for assessing the costs of an educational program. Its purpose is to help design costing procedures for evaluation situations that are commonly encountered. An…

Most of the studies of the return on investment in early childhood education have focused on the big payoffs in reduced public and societal costs associated with child welfare, public assistance, crime and incarceration, and benefits related to increased education and earnings. Several studies focus specifically on costs and benefits within the…

This report presents a costing model for teacher education programs. It explains that this is necessary since most teacher education innovations in the United States extensively use technological support, and involve high cost personnel, materials, and systems. The report also notes that the present state in planning and cost projections requires…

The costing procedures in this manual have been selected to give postsecondary educational institutions a way to determine the full cost of resources used in achieving institutional objectives. The procedures have been tested by a limited number of institutions within a wide range of activities, and are being released in a filed review edition at…

The objective of this study was to determine the cost of implementing 27 career education instructional packages in 77 Mesa (Ariz.) public school classrooms, grade K-6. Costs were part of the regularly budgeted classroom, instructional, and related costs rather than new ones. Costs for implementing federal units were $.008 and for state units were…

Two types of reports containing program cost information that can meet a variety of administrative needs are available--descriptive and comparative. The descriptive reports show program cost and Florida Education Finance Program (FEFP) revenue information. The comparative reports show program costs as percentages of revenues, as percentages of…

Advocates further development of strategies for carrying out economic analyses of early childhood programs and identifies some emerging concepts and methodologies that might support the development of expertise for such evaluation. Draws on experience of a United Kingdom team of early childhood evaluators and their attempts to develop an economic…