The basic assumptions built into the governance of higher education obstruct effective responses to problems influencing its decline. University leaders'"donnish" convictions about universality and professionalism hinder their ability to apportion scarce resources among competing missions and academic programs. A more centralized…

Rethinks the use of teachers, a school's most expensive and important resource. Four categories could benefit from restructuring: teacher and aide allocation/assignment, teacher compensation, student support services, and general and special program administration. Middletown, New York, actually improved its student:teacher ratio by using its…

Universities could increase their fiscal resources significantly through internal taxation. Internal taxation is a technique for obtaining flexibility in budgeting and making it possible for the university to support special programs, respond to special opportunities, retrieve resources from now inappropriate programs, and balance out the…

Higher Education faces two issues in capital renewal and replacement: (1) quantifying and funding the accumulated backlog of capital needs due to deferred maintenance, and (2) developing an ongoing funding plan to ensure backlogs do not accumulate in the future. (MSE)

Survey forms sent to a random sample of 5,271 school board members elicited responses from 1,096 (21 percent) board members. Lists the demographics of school board service, the specific budget cuts board members made last year, and choices they would make if further cuts were needed in the current budget. (MLF)

Rural and urban education constituencies are increasingly competing for scarce government resources. This article examines the root of the struggle (the basic value of an education), defines ensuing court struggles for resource adequacy and equity, explores urban/rural partisanship, and denotes future implications for financing education in a…

The 1990s will not be easy for public college faculty, administrators, and governing boards, who will be expected to do more with less money and fewer resources, but bear criticism for cutting back. Simultaneously, society will make greater demands for preparation of the next generation of professionals. The educational establishment must…

Increasingly, professional schools are addressing the issue of whether a financially successful program has a responsibility to support other, less financially successful programs, and how university fund raisers can assure donors that their gifts will benefit specific programs and not be siphoned into others. Law and business schools, often…

Financial problems that are being experienced by colleges and universities in Manitoba, Canada, likely results of these problems, and actions that might be taken are discussed by the president of University of Winnipeg. Provincial aid to universities in Manitoba has been inadequate. One major consequence resulting from financial problems is…

A summary is presented of a 1982 limited distribution report, published by the Communication Network of the State Higher Education Executive Officers and the National Center for Education Statistics, which presents findings of a survey conducted by the Washington Council for Postsecondary Education. The survey focused on the fiscal situation in…

Zero-base budgeting is presented as the functional alternative to the community college funding crisis which may be precipitated by passage in June 1978 of the Jarvis Amendment (Proposition 13) in California. Defined as the management of scarce resources on a cost/benefit basis to achieve pre-determined goals, zero-base budgeting emphasizes…

Problems relating to program discontinuance and the role of institutional research are discussed, drawing on a study supported by the Exxon Foundation of 10 predominantly large public universities that have either reviewed and closed programs or have gone through recent financial difficulties. Careful analysis is necessary to know that savings are…

Among the positions advocated here is that relevant educators demand the funding of a black dimension of all basic research that threatens to have a major impact on the black community, and in particular on school finance research. (Author/AM)

A six-step plan that helps manage school decline is presented. (DCS)

This essay discussing the purchasing power of the university library's acquisitions budget insists that intelligent cooperation and coordination between institutions will ensure that libraries continue to be repositories of creative thought and wisdom, though conceding that special collections may have to be pooled and branch services curtailed.…