Date of Award

1-1-2023

Language

English

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

College/School/Department

Department of Educational Policy and Leadership

Content Description

1 online resource (ix, 262 pages) : illustrations (some color)

Dissertation/Thesis Chair

Alan P Wagner

Committee Members

Jason Lane, Harvey Charles

Keywords

Campus factors/Influences on efficiency, Higher education efficiency, Higher education finance, Instructional efficiency, Research efficiency, Sources of funding, Education, Higher

Subject Categories

Higher Education

Abstract

This study has as its aim an exploration of the effects of sources of funding on efficiency in higher education. The question of interest in this study is the extent to which differences among campuses in “demand-side” revenue as a share of all revenues is associated with differences in efficiency, by type of college or university and over time. This is an empirical study, relying on quantitative analysis of campus-level information to explore the associations of interest. The study extends conventional measures of instructional efficiency, both by attributing portions of resources in student services, academic support and institutional support to instruction and by using credit hour production as output. The study develops two sets of measures of efficiency at campus level, from the information supplied by campuses to the U.S. Department of Education to be included in IPEDS. The first set concern efficiency in teaching. The second set of measures concern efficiency in teaching and research, using Data Envelopment Analysis, to obtain the estimate of an efficiency index for Doctoral-granting universities only. The estimates of campus-level efficiency so obtained were then used in linear multiple regressions to inform the primary research question. Five sets of student and campus attributes that may bear upon measured efficiency are identified and incorporated in the regressions. Propensity Score Matching (PSM) was used to “match” and compare the mean differences in campus-level efficiency of campuses otherwise similar but different in the share of demand-side funding. The principal finding is that sources of funding, defined in this study as demand-side revenues and supply-side revenues, show associations with campus-level efficiency for instruction. The significance and size of the associations between demand-side revenue and campus-level instructional efficiency vary by category of campus. Clear-cut associations between demand-side funding and campus-level instructional efficiency are found for all public categories of campus, except public Master’s level colleges, and at private Bachelor’s level colleges. A broad question whether too much is being spent by campuses in activities for teaching can be informed by the results of this study. The variation in campus-level efficiency, within categories of campus, suggests that there may well be scope for doing the same with less or doing more with the resources available. A second broad question is whether college should be “free”. The findings from this study would suggest that, to the extent that funding followed the student, a shift to high demand-side subsidy, as is the case with Pell grants and similar approaches, might well encourage resource allocations that are efficiency enhancing. There remain other concerns in the measurement of campus-level efficiency, largely conceptual with respect to joint production, e.g. doctoral training and faculty research and faculty’s input in research activities and instruction. The concern regarding whether too much is being spent by campuses in primary activities can be considered with respect to outcomes, in terms of the value of what is produced to the individuals, firms, communities, and societies. For future research, a cost-benefit analysis on the economic efficiency should be considered. If the benefits so framed from the analysis are greater than the resources expended, then the design for higher education finance policy is better informed.

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