To navigate today's fiscal challenges successfully, school districts must constantly examine the long-term fiscal implications of policy, programmatic, and human resource decisions on their organization. They must look at the effect of such items as bargaining agreements, contracted services, placement costs, transportation costs, benefits,…

The counterintuitive approach of the world's greatest value investor, Warren Buffett, may be the best hope for colleges and universities during this recession. Buffett's time-tested philosophy of seeking value and investing for the long term remains a sound approach, even if his short-term returns have declined along with those of the rest of the…

The long-range planning strategy used at the University of the Redlands to boost alumni program productivity and increase the program budget is outlined. The effort consisted of a series of planning weekends and a number of subtle strategies to justify added resources. (MSE)

Essex Community College (Maryland) has used issue-oriented planning to maintain flexibility and adaptability while responding to environmental changes. Issues addressed by centralized and structured processes include management information systems, budget development, and external resource development. Issues addressed by decentralized processes…

Prairie View A&M University's (Texas) experiences are offered as lessons in how to establish institutional priorities and procedures for retrenchment. Thirty-one specific cost-reduction strategies and policy changes are presented, and the evolution of a formal, institutionalized budget process, nonexistent until fiscal year 1991, is described.…

Describes methods used to successfully adapt to reductions in budget allocations in the University of Utah's Instructional Media Services Department. Three main areas of concern are addressed: morale and staff development; adapting to change in the areas of funding, control, media priorities, and technology; and planning for the future. (LRW)

The University of Wisconsin-Stout is in the third year of developing and implementing a long-range planning process in response to the decline in the traditional college-age population and scarce resources. Several basic principles that evolved with Stout's planning process are described, and a perspective for considering planning is suggested.…

To maintain public support, higher education in Missouri must make significant changes in the next few years, changes which will place the state's community colleges in a unique leadership position. Specifically, several pressing short, medium, and long-range issues facing the state's community colleges can be identified. Short-range issues…

Strategic planning in higher education is seen in this book as an essential element in the life of a successful college or university. This book begins by defining strategic planning and explains how to identify the core problems a college or university wants to address and solve through the planning process. It continues with advice on how to…

This report presents a plan for improving higher education within Virginia focusing on controlling costs, improving educational quality, and increasing productivity. The report's three sections: (1) review the price higher education has paid in absorbing massive budgetary reductions and discuss Virginia's current standing among the states in…

The on-going planning project described in this case study was implemented at Amarillo College (AC) to: (1) establish college goals and objectives through a process involving members of the college staff and the community; (2) improve staff and community support for the college's objectives; (3) provide a basis for institutional evaluation; and…

In recent years urban school systems have had to face unusually severe economic constraints. In the process of adjusting to these constraints, urban systems will likely seek new ways to reallocate existing resources and will undertake more cooperative ventures with other organizational entities to gain access to additional resources. Four…