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Comparing CU-Boulder Support Expenditures with Peers
LMcC, PBA, 2-15-2012 L:\IR\Reports\IPEDS\InstitutionalSupport.docx
Posted from http://www.colorado.edu/pba/peer/index.html
University financial reporting standards (including GASB) and IPEDS (US Department of
Education Postsecondary Education Data System) classify “core” expenditures by broad functional categories:

Instruction

Research

Public Service

Academic support

Institutional support

Student services

Other core expenses
“Institutional support” expenditures are frequently used as a proxy for administration, with lower support levels implying lower administrative overhead or greater efficiency.
IPEDS and most analyses
The appropriate metric for comparing institutional support levels is dollars per student
FTE.
 Dollars per se is not appropriate because large schools will obviously have larger
 expenditures.
Institutional support as a percentage of total core expenditures is not appropriate because total expenditures includes sponsored research, thereby making the total disproportionately larger in research institutions.
CU-Boulder has historically used institutional support dollars per student FTE relative to our peer average as a measure of efficiency.
Results, institutional support per student FTE, FY10
CU-Boulder
Colorado 4-yr publics
AAU publics
$1,181
$1,610
$3,165
CU-Boulder is 37% of the AAU public average and 73% of the average for Colorado 4year schools, for FY10.
Results on this and other comparisons with AAU publics are shown in the IPEDS Data
Feedback Report, http://www.colorado.edu/pba/ipeds/2011BoulderMarkup.pdf
Full IPEDS definitions of terms used here are at the bottom of this document.
Schools in Colorado 4 year publics:
Adams State College (Alamosa, CO)
Colorado Mesa University (Grand Junction, CO)
Colorado Mountain College (Glenwood Springs, CO)
Colorado School of Mines (Golden, CO)
Colorado State University-Fort Collins (Fort Collins, CO)
Colorado State University-Pueblo (Pueblo, CO)
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Fort Lewis College (Durango, CO)
Metropolitan State College of Denver (Denver, CO)
University of Colorado Denver (Denver, CO)
University of Colorado-Colorado Springs (Colorado Springs, CO)
University of Northern Colorado (Greeley, CO)
Western State College of Colorado (Gunnison, CO)
Schools in AAU publics:
Georgia Institute of Technology-Main Campus (Atlanta, GA)
Indiana University-Bloomington (Bloomington, IN)
Iowa State University (Ames, IA)
Michigan State University (East Lansing, MI)
Ohio State University-Main Campus (Columbus, OH)
Pennsylvania State University-Main Campus (University Park, PA)
Purdue University-Main Campus (West Lafayette, IN)
Rutgers University-New Brunswick (New Brunswick, NJ)
Stony Brook University (Stony Brook, NY)
Texas A & M University-College Station (College Station, TX)
The University of Texas at Austin (Austin, TX)
University at Buffalo (Buffalo, NY)
University of Arizona (Tucson, AZ)
University of California-Berkeley (Berkeley, CA)
University of California-Davis (Davis, CA)
University of California-Irvine (Irvine, CA)
University of California-Los Angeles (Los Angeles, CA)
University of California-San Diego (La Jolla, CA)
University of California-Santa Barbara (Santa Barbara, CA)
University of Florida (Gainesville, FL)
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (Champaign, IL)
University of Iowa (Iowa City, IA)
University of Kansas (Lawrence, KS)
University of Maryland-College Park (College Park, MD)
University of Michigan-Ann Arbor (Ann Arbor, MI)
University of Minnesota-Twin Cities (Minneapolis, MN)
University of Missouri-Columbia (Columbia, MO)
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (Chapel Hill, NC)
University of Oregon (Eugene, OR)
University of Pittsburgh-Pittsburgh Campus (Pittsburgh, PA)
University of Virginia-Main Campus (Charlottesville, VA)
University of Washington-Seattle Campus (Seattle, WA)
University of Wisconsin-Madison (Madison, WI)
Definitions, from IPEDS glossary: https://surveys.nces.ed.gov/ipeds/VisGlossary.aspx
Institutional support is defined, per the IPEDS glossary, as "A functional expense category that includes expenses for the day-to-day operational support of the institution.
Includes expenses for general administrative services, central executive-level activities concerned with management and long range planning, legal and fiscal operations, space management, employee personnel and records, logistical services such as purchasing and printing, and public relations and development. Also includes information technology expenses related to institutional support activities. If an institution does not separately
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3 budget and expense information technology resources, the IT costs associated with student services and operation and maintenance of plant will also be applied to this function."
IPEDS also collects data on academic support, defined as "A functional expense category that includes expenses of activities and services that support the institution's primary missions of instruction, research, and public service. It includes the retention, preservation, and display of educational materials (for example, libraries, museums, and galleries); organized activities that provide support services to the academic functions of the institution (such as a demonstration school associated with a college of education or veterinary and dental clinics if their primary purpose is to support the instructional program); media such as audiovisual services; academic administration (including academic deans but not department chairpersons); and formally organized and separately budgeted academic personnel development and course and curriculum development expenses. Also included are information technology expenses related to academic support activities; if an institution does not separately budget and expense information technology resources, the costs associated with the three primary programs will be applied to this function and the remainder to institutional support. Institutions include actual or allocated costs for operation and maintenance of plant, interest, and depreciation."
IPEDS core expenses “include expenses for instruction, research, public service, academic support, institutional support, student services, scholarships and fellowships
(reported under FASB standards as net grant aid to students), and other expenses.
Expenses for operation and maintenance of plant, depreciation, and interest are allocated to each of the other functions. Core expenses exclude expenses for auxiliary enterprises (e.g., bookstores, dormitories), hospitals, and independent operations.
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