Combined Analysis of the Educational Costs of University

Abstract

The analysis of educational costs is essential for differential pricing policy, both on the semester-basis and the credit hour-basis application, for educational services among departments of a university. The purpose of this study is to design the combined model of analyzing educational costs based on both per credit hour and student, to help differential pricing policy of university. The main features of the combined model are as follows. (1) Lecture related educational costs are included both in educational costs per credit hour and per student, but non-lecture related educational costs, such as scholarship, fellowship, etc., are included only in costs per student. (2) Academic cost units, that is, colleges and/or divisions, are divided into lecture consuming and producing units for the computational purpose. Whereas educational costs per credit hour are computed based on the lecture related costs of lecture producing units, costs per student are based on the educational costs (including non-lecture educational costs) of lecture consuming units. (3) Teaching payroll and other lecture related costs of academic units and service units are reciprocally allocated from lecture producing units to lecture consuming units, based on the flow of student credit hours between lecture producing and consuming units. (4) The model uses various costs allocation bases, such as contribution equivalent, rate of lecture time, contribution rate, rate of credit hours opened, number of students, number of professors, and costs of fixed assets, etc