Objective: The authors describe the many financial challenges facing academic departments of psychiatry and the resulting opportunities that may arise. Method: The authors review the history of financial challenges, the current economic situation, and what may lie ahead for academic departments of psychiatry. Results: The current environment has…

States and school districts are facing unprecedented financial pressure due to the continued poor performance of the United States's economy. Dramatic shortfalls in funding due to reduced tax collections were held off for 2 years thanks to federal stimulus funds, but with these revenues already consumed and little likelihood of more in the near…

Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) is an essential lifeline for millions of Americans. Without it, many families would be in deep financial distress. SSDI is insurance that workers pay for through premiums deducted from their pay. In return, workers gain the right to monthly benefits if a disabling condition ends their capacity to earn a…

Public universities are not for-profit businesses with an easy-to-understand bottom line: their financial reports are not designed to convey information to the public fully or to reflect all the costs of teaching and research. Financial reports do track every dollar in accordance with the accounting rules required by auditors, but they do not…

A news release by the BC Ministry of Education on December 9, 2011 describes upcoming changes to the funding formula for the 2012-13 Operating Grants and announces increases in CommunityLink funding for 2012-13 and 2013-14. This research report analyzes the potential impact of these changes and compares BC's performance in improving education…

This article considers the role of higher education in state budgets. It empirically models and tests the balance wheel hypothesis in a robust framework. The balance wheel model posits that in good economic times, higher education is an attractive area for states to fund and tends to be funded at a higher rate than other state budget categories.…

When "crisis" and "extramural funding" are mentioned, most academics think about problems such as the low percentage of proposals funded by federal agencies (now approaching single digits in many fields) or inadequate indirect-cost recovery rates that fail to reimburse universities for all costs of research. These are great problems draining…

This exploratory study investigates how low-income rural families celebrate children's birthdays, using interview data from 128 mothers residing in five states. Findings from a qualitative content analysis show that the mothers make special efforts to have birthday celebrations as other families do despite their financial constraints. Making the…

This study examines how five diverse California elementary schools--two underperforming and three high achieving, with statistically significant subgroups of English Learner, socioeconomically disadvantaged, and minority students--have allocated resources to improve student achievement. The applied research contributes new information to the…

When people talk about the future of public universities, they are usually talking about the flagship state universities. Flagship state universities have greatly increased expenditures in the past decade. The goal of the flagship institutions has been to compete with the best private universities, based on the assumptions that state funds will be…

Economic downturns are sudden and sharp reminders that public universities must shift their reliance on state appropriations to other sources of revenue. The recent economic crisis is another reminder that many sources of revenue must be sought for the continued vitality of public higher education in the United States. The ways and means for…

This study seeks to extend the literature on higher education enrollment patterns during times of recession by examining patterns of enrollment and successful course completion in one of the world's largest higher education systems--the California Community College system. The data are drawn from publicly available data sources on the web. CCC…

This study selected a purposeful sample of eight high performing southern California elementary schools which achieved API scores above 900 over a three year period. A review of instructional strategies for each study school during the improvement process and resource allocation patterns was determined. Case studies of each school include…

On February 17, 2009, President Barack Obama signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, better known as the economic stimulus plan. Congress and the Obama Administration acted in the wake of an economic crisis spurred by a deepening recession. Among its aims in passing the ARRA, Congress moved to help states and local jurisdictions reduce…

Public higher education's changing financial environment is well documented. Facing shrinking budgets, competing priorities, public resistance to increasing state levies, and prohibitions on deficit spending, state legislators more and more often find themselves in the unenviable position of debating the relative essentiality of state services,…