SHEEO’s Four-State Cost Study A Webinar of Findings and Applications

1. SHEEO’s Four-State Cost StudyA Webinar of Findings and Applications Paul Lingenfelter Sharmila Basu Conger SHEEO Dennis Jones NCHEMS October 13, 2010

2. Functions of Cost Analysis • Build a formula • Understand productivity trends • Assess equity of budgeting when: • Base plus budgeting is used • Non-formula items are significant in budgets • Formulas not observed consistently

3. Building Blocks of Cost Studies Assign faculty salary/benefits to instruction, research, service to determine the direct cost of instruction Assign instructional costs to specific courses by discipline Count student credit hours in courses, and allocate cost of faculty to those credit hours Classify student credit hours - by level of student or by level of course Allocate overheads (student services, academic support, O&M, institutional support)

4. Utility of Results • Resulting matrix – Cost per Student Credit Hour by discipline and instructional level – can be used to: • Identify higher cost/lower cost disciplines within and among institutions • Assess funding trends/needs within an institution and unusually high or low cost disciplines • Assess total institutional cost, in the context of average costs, for its unique instructional workload by discipline and level

5. Sample Matrix

6. Purpose of Study • Can we do more with existing cost data? • Four states with substantial cost data over multiple years • Meta-analysis across states to reveal general trends • Guiding Questions • How do costs/credit hours vary by instructional level/discipline? • Are differences stable across states? Over time? • Increase visibility of trends, based on analysis of real data • Substantial discipline-specific variation in cells of matrix • Stable patterns emerge when data combined across disciplines

7. Study Design • Four States: Florida, Ohio, Illinois; NY-SUNY • Course Coding: CIP (FL, OH, IL) vs. HEGIS (SUNY) • Years of data: 2002-2007 (FL, OH, IL) vs. 1995-2004 (SUNY) • Disciplines by State: 28 (FL, OH, IL) vs. 19 (SUNY) • Four Instructional Levels: • Undergraduate: Lower Division and Upper Division • Graduate: Graduate I and Graduate II • Classification: Course Level (OH); Student Level (IL); Mixed (FL, SUNY) • Two Institution Types: 4-year (FL, OH, IL, SUNY) and CC (OH, IL) • Analysis: Across All Disciplines; Discipline-Specific • Cost Structures and Credit Structures, comparable across states • Student Credit Hours and Cost of Instruction: Percent of Total by Instructional Level • Cost per Student Credit Hour: Indexed to Lower Division Undergraduate

8. Findings Across All Disciplines: Total Student Credit Hours (FL, OH, IL)

9. Findings Across All Disciplines: Total Student Credit Hours (+SUNY) 35% 45% < 5%

10. Findings Across All Disciplines: Total Cost of Instruction (FL, OH, IL) 45% 25% 25% 10%

11. Findings Across All Disciplines: Total Cost of Instruction (+SUNY) 38% 28% 25% 45% 25% 10%

12. Findings Across All Disciplines: Cost per Student Credit Hour (FL, OH, IL) 4.0 3.0 1.5 1.5

13. Findings Across All Disciplines: Cost per Student Credit Hour (+SUNY) 1.5 3.0 4.0 1.5

14. Summary of Findings Across All Disciplines • Consistent patterns and trends across all four states: • Similar patterns, stable over time, of credit hour distribution and cost structures across four levels of instruction • Majority of both credit hours (80%) and cost (66%) represented by Undergraduate levels of instruction • Almost half (45%) of both credit hours and cost represented by Upper Division Undergraduate level • Cost per student credit hour increases with increasing instructional levels (LD : UD : G1 :G2) :: (1 : 1.5 : 3 : 4) • Total Cost of Instruction: • Substantially greater number of credit hours in undergraduate levels outweighs substantially greater cost per credit hour in graduate levels • Similar trends over timein credit hours and cost measures • Credit hours have increased over time in all four states • Cost measures, adjusted for inflation, have remained stable or decreased

15. Discipline-Specific Findings • Analysis of “larger” disciplines: >5% of total cost/credits • Individual disciplines generally demonstrate same cost and credit structures (by Instructional Level) as Totals for each state • Greatest Fraction of Total Credits/Total Cost (FL, OH, IL) • Lower: English, Math, Physical Sciences, Social Sciences • Upper: Business, Education, Social Sciences • Grad I: Business, Education, Health/Medicine • Grad II: Biology, Education, Engineering, Physical Sciences • Cost per Student Credit Hour (FL, OH, IL) • Most expensive: Engineering, Health/Medicine, Law • Least expensive: Math, English, Psychology

16. Cost Comparison: Community Colleges • 2007 Community College cost data available for IL and OH • Comparison: Cost per Student Credit Hour • Instructional cost data, Total (all disciplines) • Public CCs compared to Lower Division Undergraduate, 4-years • Finding: Per-Credit-Hour costs are equivalent!

17. Summary of Findings • Cost/Credit structures, by Instructional Level: • similar across disciplines • consistent across states and over time • Greatest fraction of Total Costs AND Total Credits: • Upper Division Undergraduate • Community Colleges and Baccalaureate Institutions: • Equivalent in Cost per Student Credit Hour

18. Application: Nevada • Nevada System of Higher Education came to SHEEO and NCHEMS requesting assistance • Goal: Determine whether the allocation of funds within the state was equitable across institutions. • Available: • Credit Hours by discipline and level • Total General Fund Revenues (Tuition + Appropriations) • Missing: • Cost per Credit Hour by discipline and level • Process: • Part 1: Create costing “matrix” and table of relative weights • Part 2: Apply table of relative weights to Nevada data

19. Application: Nevada • Process, Part 1: Create costing “matrix” and table of relative weights • A “matrix” of average cost per student credit hour (C/SCH) was created • Data from CIP states (FL, IL, OH) • Sorted by discipline and instructional level • (Sum of Total Costs)/(Sum of Total Credits) = Average C/SCH • A table of relative weights was created from this “matrix” (lowest C/SCH set to 1.0) • Process, Part 2: Apply table of relative weights to Nevada data • Relative weights were multiplied by Nevada’s actual Credit Hours by discipline and level • Revenues per weighted credit hour were calculated • Using average for 3 states (FL, OH, IL) • For each state • Result was funding per weighted credit hour

20. Sample Table of Relative Weights

21. Contact Information Paul Lingenfelter plingenfelter@sheeo.org Sharmila Basu Conger sbconger@sheeo.org Dennis Jones dennis@nchems.org