This paper establishes five new facts about instructional costs in higher education using department-level data from a broad range of institutions. Costs vary widely across fields, ranging from electrical engineering (90% higher than English) to math (25% lower). This pattern is largely explained by differences in class size and faculty pay. Some…

The private return to postsecondary investment varies widely by field, but the resources required by different fields are not well known. This paper establishes five new facts about college costs using novel department-level data. First, costs vary widely across field, ranging from electrical engineering (109 percent higher costs than English) to…

Growing evidence shows that unequal distribution of wealth and power across race, class, and gender produces the differences in living conditions that are "upstream" drivers of health inequalities. Health educators and other public health professionals, however, still develop interventions that focus mainly on "downstream"…

Here, we look at the enrolments of students in undergraduate mathematics courses in a number of countries. The data show various increases and decreases and we suggest some common reasons for the fluctuations. These include students' goals of a secure and well-paid job, government actions and the state of the economy in the country concerned. We…

The applicability of the principle of comparable pay for comparable worth is discussed for college faculty jobs, not only for alleviation of sex discrimination but also for eliminating bias-related discrepancies between departments or specialties. (MSE)

The status of women faculty members at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University is examined. Attention is focused on the progress made by the university over the last 5 years in hiring and promoting women faculty, the representation of women in the administration and university governance, and salaries. Major conclusions are as follows:…

Conclusions one would make from looking at average faculty salaries in a specific department were compared with those conclusions evolving from a regression analysis of the same salaries. The standard salary study does little more than report the average salary associated with each faculty rank within each department, while a regression study…

A new approach to medical school faculty compensation and advancement is proposed as a means for developing a better ethos for teaching. According to the plan, half the available resources are distributed according to departmental merit, based on research and teaching performance of each department faculty as a group. (Author/MSE)

The way that inflation has created pressure points on quantity of resouces and quality of outcomes in postsecondary education is examined, along with the situation of the chemistry department of the University of Montreal. Data from the chemistry department for 1971-80 are used to assess the impact of inflation on various objects of expenditures…