The Problem How can a university allocate its resources, and especially its unrestricted funds, to best serve the academic mission while ensuring financial sustainability? Academic and financial officers find resource allocation difficult and time consuming because universities are extremely complex and highly decentralized organizations, which are driven by mission-based values rather than a financial bottom […]
READ MOREBill Gates recently presented at the National Association of College and University Business Officers (NACUBO) Annual Meeting, where he spoke about America’s greatest asset being the Higher Education system. There were a number of key points that came out of his speech and Q&A session. Dramatic changes are coming to colleges, it’s no longer good […]
READ MOREIn Flanders the recently formed coalition government has decided to cut the higher education budget by 5% and has given the universities two options to absorb this cut: reduce your operating budget by a same percentage or increase student fees to recoup the cut. The latter would effectively mean more than doubling fees from €600 […]
READ MOREThere are a lot of articles, analysis and even a high profile documentary discussing the current problems with higher education, in particular the rapidly rising tuition, reduction in Government funding, increase in student debt, reduction in enrollments etc. A lot of the discussion seems to revolve around factors that are external to the university or […]
READ MORE“Reports that say that something hasn’t happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns — […]
READ MOREI’m going to take a different approach with this post today. Many of my posts have focused on the negative things occurring in the Higher Education sector, things like reduction in state and federal funding, more competition for students, reduction in endowments, the end of traditional education as we know it. All doom and gloom, […]
READ MOREThis year we held our inaugural University Strategic Decision Making conference in Melbourne on the 3rd and 4th of April for our client and non-client universities. With 14 institutions in attendance we were very pleased with the turn out. At this point I would like to thank those that came and took two days out […]
READ MOREThe higher education industry and its observers have wrung hands over rising costs for years. While there are many reasons for escalating costs, there is at least one that higher education leadership has complete control over and could start addressing immediately. The fact of the matter is, there is almost a complete lack of visibility on how much […]
READ MOREUniversities globally are under increasing financial strain. Government funding is decreasing, competition for students is increasing, tuition is rising and the true value of higher education is being questioned by students, parents and politicians. How do you balance academic values and market forces? The paper below, written by William F. Massy, Professor Emeritus and Former […]
READ MOREImagine being able to increase revenues without increasing the cost base! This topic is bound to create a lot of robust discussion, which is encouraged and it should be discussed. We are talking about understanding the capacity of the teaching environment so that schools maintain the optimum number of lecturers/teachers for the enrolled students. This […]
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