Nigerian universities have the capacities to perform in terms of educational management research quality and impact to promote research excellence. This will market the institutions in order to attract funding and make them more flexible, cost efficient and responsive to the need of the society. More so, the allocation of research funds to…

With recent research from the Institute for Higher Education Policy showing that college is unaffordable for as many as 70% of working- and middle-class students, concerns about college costs are mounting. The cost of operating an institution of higher education, with very few exceptions, is reflected in the price of attendance that students,…

As any parent with a college-bound child knows, college tuitions are rising much faster than inflation. One way to control costs is to make parents better consumers by giving them better price and outcome information. But the true cost of a college education is hard to calculate because of complex and opaque pricing structures. Today, colleges are…

As state tax revenues plummet, some lawmakers and higher-education leaders are once again looking at loosening the bonds between state governments and public colleges to save money and give colleges the freedom to bolster their bottom lines in new ways. Over the past two decades, college officials have often lamented the growing need to secure…

What is the capacity of online programs? Can these types of programs enroll more students than their face-to-face counterparts or not? This article looks at research on achieving cost-efficiencies through online learning, identifies the parts of an online program that can be changed to increase enrollments, and discusses whether a program's…

In college and university administration, overhead costs are often charged to programs indiscriminately, whereas the support activities that underlie those costs remain unanalyzed. It is time for institutions to decrease ineffective use of resources. Activity-based management attributes costs more accurately and can improve efficiency. (MSE)

This paper applies the management science tool of break-even analysis to determine the costs of implementing an off-campus bachelor degree completion program at a four-year private liberal arts college. The first section describes break-even analysis which, in this application, is calculated by dividing the total annual cost for a cohort of…

Outdated and cumbersome administrative processes and technology at the University of Missouri prompted use of business process reengineering (BPR) techniques to bring about change. BPR helped quantify staff resources and costs associated with major administrative processes, know where those processes were occurring, and understand opportunities…

Marginal utility analysis is described in this paper, with zero-base budgeting (ZBB) discussed as an applied example. Some of the theoretical and practical issues surrounding such models are assessed, and the movement for more scientific and rational resource allocation is placed in a larger methodological and philosophical context. The focus of…

Designing a cost planning requires attention to the external environment, as well as an understanding of the relative influence of facts, as opposed to values, in resource allocation processes. A context for selecting design characteristics of a planning process is established. (MLW)

This article urges leaders at institutions of higher education to analyze the decision to pursue a Total Quality Management improvement strategy in the same way as any other strategy--as a return on investment. Evidence of costs and benefits of TQM from industry and campus is summarized, and barriers to a "return on quality investment" mindset are…

This paper examines the proposition that management information systems (MIS) for colleges and universities are not achieving their original objectives of supporting better management decisions by providing more and better information in a more timely manner. As a consequence, the MIS activity should be reduced in scope, and standardized to…

Although Planning-Programing-Budgeting Systems (PPBS) may be inappropriate to the higher educational setting, it is clear that some of the underlying principles of program budgeting have had an important influence on college and university management. The development, application and influence of PPBS are examined. (JMD)

A study focusing on the current practices in Australian colleges of advanced education with respect to the management of teaching personnel is reported. Issues considered include: methodology currently used in the allocation of teaching personnel resources, and the number and type of personnel utilized and the correlation of academic staffing.…

Technological advances in nonproprietary software are discussed. Developments in general support of software and in computer hardware are examined. It is suggested that nonproprietary software is a resource that can save colleges and universities system development time and costs. (Author/SF)