Higher Education Finance

Doing Much More with Less: Implementing Operational Excellence at UC Berkeley by Andrew J. Szeri, Richard Lyons, Peggy Huston, and John Wilton

Andrew J. Szeri
Richard Lyons
Peggy Huston
John Wilton
2013

Universities are undergoing historic change, from the sharp downward shift in government funding to widespread demands to document performance. At the University of California Berkeley, this led to an operational change effort unlike any the university had ever attempted, dubbed Operational Excellence. The authors describe their experiences designing and leading this change effort, with emphasis on practical advice for similar efforts at other universities.

California's Fiscal Returns on Investments in Higher Education by Jon Stiles, Michael Hout, and Henry Brady

Jon Stiles
Michael Hout
Henry Brady
2012

The ongoing budget crisis in California raises many questions about the most effective ways to allocate resources in ways which sustain future investments. In this paper, we consider two questions: What are the benefits to the state for investing in higher education? And, how do current educational investments create an environment which supports future needs? Drawing on current and historic data on returns to education for individuals, income tax regimes, state investments in higher education, progress and completion patterns, and mechanisms which translate individual impacts into...

Politics, Markets, And University Costs Financing Universities In The Current Era

Roger L. Geiger
2000

The purpose of this study is to determine the factors shaping the financing of the principal universities of the United States, and to explore the consequences for institutions and for students. Revenues are the lifeblood of these or any other universities. The level of resources that universities command from society determines the level and scope of their activities, and who provides these resources greatly affects their behavior. Moreover, where resources are concerned, both inequality and inconsistency have been the rule. During the 1980s, universities generally were able to lift...

The Corporation of Learning: Nonprofit Higher Education Takes Lessons from Business, by David L. Kirp

David L. Kirp
2019

This essay examines the ways in which nonprofit universities increasingly emulate businesses, focusing on two of the most direct forms of emulation: the creation of internal university markets at the University of Southern California through adoption of variants of resource center management (RCM) and the privatization of public higher education at the University of Virginia.

The Dynamics of Variable Fees: Exploring Institutional and Public Policy Responses, by David Ward and John Aubrey Douglass

David Ward
John Aubrey Douglass
2005

Variable fees at the graduate and undergraduate levels are a topic of discussion in the US and in the EU as part of a larger movement towards increasing the role of fees in the funding of public universities. This essay describes this relatively new shift and its causes, outlines various funding models related to fee levels, and discusses the possible policy implications of variable fee structures. Here we argue that much of the movement toward increased fees in places such as the US and the UK is being pursued incrementally, without an adequate discussion of the long-term...

Federal, State, and Local Governments: University Patrons, Partners, or Protagonists?

Charles M. Vest
2006

Charles Vest gave the first of three Clark Kerr Lectures on the Role of Higher Education in Society on April 19, 2005 on the Berkeley campus. This essay argues that research-intensive public and private universities increasingly have far more similarities than differences in missions, structures, and even financial support. For both, the federal government, despite numerous tensions, remains our indispensable partner. At the same time, the role of state governments toward their public universities has evolved from that of patron to that of partner — sometimes a minor partner...

Executive Compensation at the University of California: An Alternative View, by Patricia A. Pelfrey

Patricia A. Pelfrey
2008

The 2005-6 executive compensation controversy at the University of California has been explained as the result of a massive breach of compliance with the University’s compensation policies by the Office of the President (UCOP). For more than a decade, the explanation goes, UCOP failed to comply with its own compensation policies, embodied in the 1992-93 Principles for Review of Executive Compensation, and engaged in a longstanding pattern of secrecy and policy violations. This paper argues that both assertions are wrong. It begins by analyzing the issues leading to adoption of the...

A Cautionary Analysis of a Billion Dollar Athletic Expenditure by John Cummins

John Cummins
2017

This paper is a description and analysis of the history of the renovation of Memorial Stadium and the building of the Barclay Simpson Student Athlete High Performance Center (SAHPC) on the Berkeley campus, showing how incremental changes over time result in a much riskier and financially less viable project than originally anticipated. It describes the decision making process, the role of various constituent groups including senior administrators and the UC Regents, faculty, community members and local and state governmental officials, donors and protesters. It includes the legal...

The Allure of Free Tuition

John Aubrey Douglass
2025

John Aubrey Douglass

Senior Research Fellow

John Aubrey Douglass is Senior Research Fellow -- Public Policy and Higher Education at the Center for Studies in Higher Education (CSHE) at the University of California - Berkeley. He is the author of Neo-Nationalism and Universities (Johns Hopkins Univeristy Press 2021), Envisioning the Asian...