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Using Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) figures on the 96 Research Extensive Institution in academic year 2007-2008, we employ panel data from academic year 1984-1985 to 2007-2008 to identify revenue-expenditure relationships. Although we consider a wide range of functional expenditure categories, we focus our analysis on instructional and research expenditures because these categories tie most closely to the core missions of research universities. Results suggest tight relationships between some revenue and expenditure categories for some institutions. For public universities, these relationships tend to follow expected paths. For example, a large proportion of tuition revenues tend to be spent in the functional category of instruction. Private universities evidence a somewhat different pattern, with revenues generally expended in the pursuit of merit aid and research. This suggests that private universities strategically deploy revenues from a wide variety of sources to secure particular students and to conduct research activities. However, the ways in which universities and IPEDS classify faculty work raises some questions about the transparency of various categories, and suggests that some current conceptions of how revenues are expended on research and instruction functions may be less than straightforward.

This document describes innovative programs in education for various professions including law, health services, social work, teaching, agriculture-related professions, architecture, business, and engineering. Programs of health services are further divided into those for physicians, physician assistants, nurses, and dentists. Information is provided concerning program title, location, sponsors, funding, size, contact personnel, objectives, and program description. A framework for examining professional education programs is also included. (MJM)

This study was designed to collect data concerning the characteristics of the higher education faculty of Pennsylvania. A population of 21,228 teaching faculty in 118 colleges and universities in Pennsylvania were surveyed by means of college catalogs, records of the Pennsylvania Human Rights Commission, and a mail questionnaire. The catalogs provided information about source of degrees, and limited data on race were obtained from the Human Rights Commission. Tenure status, age, rank, teaching load, sex, place of birth, highest degree, length of experience, and number of national professional conferences attended were obtained from the questionnaire. Highlights of the study indicated: (1) Almost two-thirds of Pennsylvania faculty had tenure in the academic year 1972-73. (2) A comparable bulging at the higher professorial ranks has not yet occurred in Pennsylvania. (3) The faculty of Pennsylvania institutions of higher education appears to be an aging faculty. Those over 40 years of age now constitute 56.8 percent of the total. (4) The average teaching load for Pennsylvania faculty is about ten hours. (5) Faculty in the Commonwealth are not particularly inbred. Less than 20 percent have returned to their alma maters as teachers. (6) Women compose only 21.1 percent of the faculty in Pennsylvania; and they are less likely than Pennsylvania men to be tenured and to be at the senior academic ranks. (Author/MJM)

Assessed are the consequences of direct aid to students in private higher education. Three levels of evidence are proposed to show that student aid is in fact aiding the private sector: (1) time series, national and selected state enrollment data disaggregated by sector, juxtaposed with time series national and state student aid data; (2) attendance patterns of aid recipients in comparison with patterns of norm groups; and (3) data showing intersectorial enrollment shifts directly attributable to the award of student aid. The analysis is presented for the informed policy maker and analyst. (Author/MSE)

The impact of faculty unionization on faculty compensation, research contract revenues, student tuition and fees, and other financial considerations are examined in this report. The study uses multiple regression models to analyze the net impact of collective bargaining on a sample of over 100 union and nonunion institutions. Faculty compensation in union and nonunion institutions is compared overall and within several institutional categories (e.g., public, private, two-year, four-year). Included are considerations of the long-term effects of bargaining on compensation composed of salaries versus fringe benefits. Also studied are the relationships of collective bargaining to changes in the amounts of institutional income from varying sources and to changes in the distribution of institutional expenditures. It is found that, holding other factors constant, average faculty compensation in unionized institutions during 1974-75 was about $1,291 more than in nonunionized institutions. Further, this compensation advantage increased steadily to 1974-75 at which time a reversal was noted; in 1975-76 the $1,291 advantage shrunk to $800. Beyond the financial implications for faculty, unionization does not appear to have changed the incentives of faculty to seek contract research money from the government. (Author/LBH)

Results of empirical studies of the size-cost relationship in higher education are synthesized, with emphasis on comprehensives, standardization, and mathematical integration. Results of research on economies of scale at two- and four-year colleges and research are summarized as follows: (1) two- and four-year colleges, on average, do experience positive returns to size; (2) substantive size-related economies are most likely to occur at the low end of the enrollment range; (3) the enrollment range over which such economies are likely to be found differs by type of institution; (4) the extent of such economies differs by function, with the administrative area typically experiencing the greatest reduction in unit cost and instruction the least; (5) for educational and general expenditures, the broadest category, a three- to four-fold difference in enrollment among small institutions is accompanied by a difference in cost per student, at the mean, of 25 percent for two-year institutions and 23 percent for four-year institutions; and (6) the extent to which scale-related economies or diseconomies are demonstrated by a given set of institutions depends on variations among them in the scope and variety of the programs and services they offer, the salaries they pay, and the general disposition of their resources. A six-page list of references concludes the document. (SW)

Voluntary support of higher education in America is investigated through regression analysis of institutional characteristics at two points in time. The assumption of donor rationality together with explicit consideration of interorganizational relationships offers a coherent framework for the analysis of voluntary support by the major donor-groups. Support by alumni and non-alumni individuals and business corporations is specifically isolated, and support by all other sources is combined in another category. Although the various donor groups sometimes act in a consistent manner, more often donor behavior is best understood on a subgroup basis. Institutional size is of importance to most donor groups, and institutional quality is of significance to all groups, save alumni, who respond to more institutional prestige and the financial difficulty of their alma mater. Current institutional efforts at fund raising appear to be primarily reactive in nature. Long-standing ties to institutions are of importance to most donor groups. The various groups who contribute to American research universities act in a manner largely predictable from theory. Economic organizations tend to react primarily in rational economic fashion, whereas the emotives of private individuals have a clearly human dimension as well. Contains 19 references. (SM)

A new set of dynamics in the financing of higher education is reviewed, beginning in the 1970s with development of federal policy supporting high tuition and increased student financial aid. Implications of this policy for the future are examined from the perspective of the resource dependency theory. (MSE)

This discussion of costs of college administration offers explanations of escalating costs in different branches and levels of administration and looks at the analytical value of two sets of constructs: (1) internal position (organizational distance) and budgetary authority of administrators, and (2) relationship between internal administrative stratification and external power structures. (MSE)

Suggestions on how to enhance a college's fund-raising abilities are presented. Six sections are as follows: exemplary performers (noting the relationships between amounts raised and strategies employed); what works and what does not work in fund- raising (an institution's public visibility is important, and a poverty strategy is not); whether successful athletic programs enhance support (athletic success tends to result in larger contributions to athletic programs with spillovers to academic programs); how tax laws affect voluntary support (though recent tax code revisions raised serious concern that the levels of voluntary support of higher education might decline, some indicators suggest that the decline might not be as serious as forecast); new ideas in nonprofit research, focusing on an 1988 study by Weisbrod that shows that a tax increase of 10% may result in philanthropic declines of as little as .1% or as much as 2.54%); and what is in store for the future (suggesting a broad, national database of higher education donors to provide the sorts of information social scientists require to test propositions). Contains 10 references. (SM)