Posts published on August 7, 2014

Administrators Ate My Tuition ? And More

The headline is last entry in this update from the Delta Cost Project at AIR

College Subsidies Hit Decade Low as Students Pay at Least Half of Their Education Cost for

the First Time
Subsidies for public higher education institutions have hit a 10-year low, according to the latest Delta Cost Project report by the American Institutes for Research (AIR). This comes at a time when students now pay on average half or more of their education’s cost. The report also shows that community colleges are posting the lowest level of spending per student in a decade.

“Students are paying an ever-larger share of the costs colleges and universities incur to provide an education—particularly students at public institutions,” said Donna Desrochers, the report’s lead author and an AIR principal researcher. “Research universities are still feeling the recession’s aftermath, with academic spending per student declining for two years straight, while spending at other four-year institutions rose.”

The report used 2001–11 data compiled by the Delta Cost Project from information institutions reported to the U.S. Department of Education. Read the summary and key findings for Trends in College Spending: 2001–2011.

TCS Is New and Improved!
The Trends in College Spending (TCS) online database had a facelift! The redesigned site is not only better looking, but more user-friendly. TCS now includes data from 2011, the latest data available on college spending. The new site houses a redesigned “Institutional Snapshot” service, allowing users to access an in-depth spending report on a single college or university.

But the site has not changed in any important ways. As always, TCS Online is an interactive Web-based data system that provides education stakeholders easy access to information on finance, performance, and enrollments for individual institutions, groups of institutions, or the nation as a whole.

Visit our new and improved site.

“Think Again: Administrators Ate My Tuition! Really?”
In a recent commentary, Delta Cost Managing Researcher Rita Kirshstein refutes the idea that highly paid administrators are sucking down tuition dollars. Read the full story.


Visit us at www.deltacostproject.org or follow us on Twitter @deltacostproject.