The University of North Carolina system includes 16 universities, from large campuses with high research activity to small liberal arts institutions. They differ in many ways, from location to student body to the classes they offer. They also differ in state funding—from $7,760 per student at Appalachian State University to $31,969 per student at the … Continue reading “Did You Know? Not All UNC Students Get the Same Funding”
Everything that the UNC system and its constituent institutions do is dependent on a generous inflow of money. In fiscal year 2020, the UNC system received $10.2 billion in revenues, excluding revenues for UNC hospitals. Where does all that money come from? By far, the state of North Carolina is the system’s largest source of … Continue reading “Did You Know? Where UNC System’s $10 Billion in Revenue Comes From”
According to one recent estimate, American colleges in the last few years, in a period of extraordinary enrollment decline, have added 70 million square feet of new instruction and research facilities on their campuses. That is more space than in 10 Pentagons, the largest office facility in the U.S. Yet enrollments for fall 2020 had … Continue reading “The Edifice Complex Is a Threat to University Budgets”
It only took a global pandemic to force public and private universities to cut their spending. The Bureau of Labor Statistics estimated that about 650,000 jobs were cut in the higher ed sector—a 14 percent decline. An analysis from The Chronicle of Higher Education on the budgets of about 100 top colleges pegged their losses … Continue reading “Did You Know? COVID-19 Budget Cuts Hit Students and Profs, Not Admins”
Public colleges spend public money, but college officials are reluctant to make information about their budgets easy to understand. That aversion to transparency makes it easier to pass non-instructional expenses along to students. Many experts have discussed the problem. But without transparency, it can be hard to show just how much so-called instruction is actually … Continue reading “Without Financial Transparency, Colleges Mislabel Research Spending as Instructional”
Explaining higher education policy is never easy (even to people who are involved in it). Over the years, while training young writers for the Martin Center, I have come up with a model that has proven useful. One way to produce clarity among the confusion is to apply a model having four basic perspectives rather … Continue reading “The Four Perspectives of Higher Education Policy Explained”
Reliable information is a prerequisite for good management. How can you make intelligent decisions if you are basing them on shaky information? This has been an ongoing problem for the University of North Carolina system, in which many high-level decisions are made by a governing board composed of part-time members. The main problem is that … Continue reading “UNC Faculty Teaching Loads Report Is Insufficient for Making Policy”
The University of Missouri, where I teach and which I dearly love, is in crisis. Freshman enrollment at the university’s Columbia campus (Mizzou) is down by a whopping 35% from two years ago. Missouri’s governor and legislature slashed Mizzou’s state appropriation by $22 million this year. Administrators have responded by cutting Mizzou’s operating budget by … Continue reading “How Not to Recover from a Crisis, Mizzou Edition”
What’s to be done about “low-productivity” degree programs?
North Carolina’s latest higher education budget has some good features, but could be better.