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…

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 article discusses how one small liberal arts school, Wheaton College in Massachusetts, devised a strategic plan to improve faculty salaries by linking improvements in salaries to improvements in college resources. The benefits of the salary plan went beyond improving salaries. First, the plan dictated that faculty salaries be determined at…

Every college and university experiences some form of financial hardship at one time or another. The financial problems plaguing local and state governments in recent years have been sufficient by themselves to create serious problems for institutions across the country. At the very least, an institution's financial difficulties can lead to the…

Faculty members must understand the actual finances of educational institutions in order to achieve less biased allocations. Increased faculty awareness of total resources can help shift allocation patterns, making institutional resources more effective in accomplishing the mission of higher education. (MLW)

Factors common to the budgeting process in all institutions and influencing the degree and quality of faculty participation are outlined, including governance, budget cycles, levels of review, expenditure plans, sources of revenue, and hidden costs. Suggestions are given for enhancing both the substance and the timing of faculty participation.…

Although the British government has committed itself to the substantial expansion of access to higher education, it is not prepared to pay for the change, forcing institutions into uncontrolled and competitive cost-cutting and substituting student-financed subsidized loans for publicly funded grants. Faculty morale has suffered greatly. (MSE)

Analysis of resource allocation in Michigan's higher education institutions indicates that spending is not driven by fixed costs, as often assumed. Most functions connected to the fundamental missions of the universities have been given lower priority than ancillary functions. Faculty compensation has lost ground overall, rather than leading…