As higher-education institutions across the country struggle with constrained sources of funds, more than 80 percent of state institutions said they rely on energy-management programs to reduce operating costs, according to a report released by the American Association of State Colleges and Universities (Aascu). The report, based on a survey of…

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…

Many professors and administrators express a common complaint about how universities work--that employees and units are often charged fees for work or services they receive from other campus units. This practice, often called "chargebacks," is much misunderstood because it seems counterintuitive: If you are employed by the university, why should…

State-of-the-art, energy-efficient facilities are now emerging on campuses across the US, and for a variety of reasons: One practical consideration is that such buildings bring down energy costs, which are now soaring. Facing rising expenditures and a tightening of potential revenue, universities are looking for ways to reduce operating costs, and…

If one wanted to win a library election in 2006, what would have been the mythical perfect referenda? For building referenda, the sweet spot was hit with measures over $10 million, on a ballot sometime between September and December, with no other items on the ballot, in a general election, for a library serving a population under 100,000. For the…

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…

Printers represent a big chunk of school districts' IT budgets. Unlike computers, however, most of the money schools spend on printers is not on the machines themselves but on keeping them serviced and filled with toner, drums, and paper. In this article, the author discusses five critical questions to ask before buying a printer.

Some schools, districts, and states are tackling the cost of hardware and network products by using E-rate money, which is tied to the number of students eligible for the school-lunch program, requires attention to several forms and deadlines, and makes filtering mandatory. Forming consortia with other districts to allow bulk purchasing is another…

Context: National benchmark data for 2002 indicate that large rural for-profit hospitals have a median cash flow margin of 19.5% compared to 9.2% for their nonprofit counterparts. Purpose: This study aims to gain insight regarding the driving factors behind the high cash flow performance of large rural for-profit hospitals. Methods: Using 3 annual…

The authors discuss how to use economic techniques to evaluate educational programs and show how to apply basic cost analysis to implementation of school-wide positive behavior support (SWPBS). A description of cost analysis concepts used for economic program evaluation is provided, emphasizing the suitability of these concepts for evaluating…

Enrollment management is a process critical to most small private universities that rely on tuition for a significant portion of their operating budgets. Often these universities rely on outside consultants to help them in performing this important process. This case study describes how university assets were used to create an interactive…

Background: This paper considers some economic aspects of a therapy and support service for people with stroke and aphasia. This material was part of a broader evaluation of the service, which is reported elsewhere (van der Gaag et al. 2005, van der Gaag and Mowles 2005). Aims: The purpose of this part of the study was to investigate the…

State and private agencies have attempted to determine the costs of providing an "adequate" education for public elementary and secondary students. In order to identify adequacy target expenditures, four education finance models currently are found within the education finance research literature: (1) Professional Judgment Model; (2) Statistical…

Presents an investigation of public library operations to determine whether economies or diseconomies of scale exist, thus providing an analysis of the cost side of library operations. Costs are found proportional to output levels, meaning that average costs are the same regardless of library size. Quality of output is not considered. (Author/MBR)

In the late 1990s, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation made grants to study people's attitudes toward retirement and to determine what factors influenced their decisions to retire. Although faculty were not talking to college administrators or human-resources departments about health care, the researchers found to their surprise that when they…