All U.S. college and university presidents were surveyed in 1979 to determine their priorities among planning and management improvements at their institutions. Questionnaires were mailed in December 1978 to all chief executive officers (president or chancellor), or chief executive officer for a system of colleges, universities, and central offices listed on the 1977-78 Higher Education General Information Survey. Though nearly one-third of all public institutions responded, less than one-fifth of private institutions did. Among the three institutional types, universities had the highest response rate (33 percent), followed by two-year institutions (28 percent), and by four-year institutions (25 percent). Public universities and public four-year colleges had the highest response rates (38 percent), and private two-year colleges the lowest (14 percent). Based on 900 returned and usable questionnaires of the total 3,327, the highest priority areas were: (1) communicating institutional strengths to potential students, their parents, and the general public; (2) communicating institutional strengths to the state legislature and state budget officials (for public institutions); (3) integrating program-review results in program-planning and budget processes; (4) resource allocation and reallocation; (5) faculty vitality and renewal; (6) implementing institutional goals and objectives through the planning and budgeting process; and (7) forecasting institutional revenue needs more accurately. Most of these high priority areas were interpreted as reflecting the current environment of retrenchment and the need to prepare for a no-growth or slow-growth era. (SW)