The American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA) has just released a new report on administrative costs in higher education—How Much is Too Much? Controlling Administrative Costs through Effective Oversight. ACTA summarizes the problem of rising administrative costs, and provides convenient metrics for trustees to check to see how administrative costs at their institutions compare with those of their peers.
Perhaps the most intriguing conclusion in ACTA’s report is that smaller programs, especially small baccalaureate programs, have higher administrative costs in relationship to instructional costs than do larger institutions, universities with doctoral programs, and institutions that host large amounts of research. It is unclear why this is the case, so more research is needed to find out the reason for this pattern.
Go read the entire report at ACTA’s website.
Image Credit: College Fund by Tax Credits / CC BY 2.0.
