Author: Professor William Massy

Higher Education Shared Governance Requirements #10-11: Budget Process Improvement and Scenario Planning

Every university goes through an annual budgeting cycle.  There are about as many budget processes as there are universities but they all have one thing in common:  the need to take account of changes in enrolment, governmental support, and other external factors.  This is not easy because each potential factor affects various parts of the […]

READ MORE

Higher Education Shared Governance Requirements #9: Improving Program Review

Previous blogs examined how the Pilbara model helps identify programs for investment and disinvestment (#5) and illuminates the economic relationships between programs (degrees) and individual courses (subjects).  Now we turn to “Program Review” – a deep dive into the specifics of particular programs. Traditional reviews look at a program’s curricular structure, the institution’s capacity (in […]

READ MORE

Higher Education Shared Governance Data Requirement #8: Course and Program Relationships

Combining the analytic insights from using a tool such as Microsoft Power BI together with a robust cost model can open up a previously hidden set of views to management, particularly with respect to courses (subjects) and programs (degrees).  In the past, this data has not purposefully be hidden, but rather it’s simply not captured […]

READ MORE

Higher Education Shared Governance Data Requirement #7: Tuition Price Setting

Tuition pricing decisions must balance each program’s expected student demand (at a given price) against its per-student contribution margin and recover the institutions full costs when all the programs are added together. The Pilbara model calculates fully loaded and net margins (based on gross tuition and fee revenue, offset by financial aid / scholarship / […]

READ MORE

Higher Education Shared Governance Data Requirement #6: Marginal Enrollment Cost and Break-even Analysis

Marginal Enrollment Cost and Break-even Analysis are two of the hardest concepts to both calculate and analyse as you need to have a detailed and robust cost model to support your decision-making process.  Among other things, you need to be able to differentiate direct costs from support costs, and fixed from variable costs, at the […]

READ MORE

Higher Education Shared Governance Data Requirement #5: Identify Candidate Programs for Investment or Disinvestment

Thinking in terms of degree and other academic programs is essential when considering your institution’s revenues, costs, and margins. This kind of thinking goes beyond analyses based on faculties, schools, and departments. It is the program portfolio that connects the institution to the student marketplace, so that is the place where resource allocation strategy should […]

READ MORE

Higher Education Shared Governance Data Requirement #4: Identify Course Candidates for Redesign or Elimination

It is not uncommon for schools to receive pressure to address their low enrolment courses (subjects). For example, they may be told that they shouldn’t be running courses with fewer than, say, six students in them. So how do you go about distinguishing the ‘good’ courses from the ‘bad’ courses? It is not a simple […]

READ MORE

Higher Education Shared Governance Data Requirement #3: Understand Your Delivery Options

Universities are constantly jugging resources – research brings the rankings and brand while teaching brings the bulk of the revenue.  In Australia, this has become even harder in 2018 with the capping of CGS (Commonwealth Grant Scheme) funding. Universities see their students as customers and provide a range of services, both inside and outside of […]

READ MORE

Higher Education Shared Governance Data Requirement #2: Understanding Teaching and Research Relationships

Following on from knowing your ‘available’ versus ‘required’ academic hours (as outlined in our last newsletter / blog post), the next level of understanding is to apply that knowledge to all the outputs of the school or discipline and not just the teaching component.  By understanding the full theoretical output of a school, and then applying […]

READ MORE

Higher Education Shared Governance Data Requirement #1: Analyzing Workload Profiles

I recently interviewed around 50 individuals at several higher education institutions across Australia to better understand what academics and administrators really need to support both their day-to-day as well as big picture decision making. I learned that academics want to be involved in the financial management of their institutions to ensure they are sustainable. This […]

READ MORE