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 MOREOne of the major benefits of having a systemized approach to costing is that you can save an extraordinary amount of time developing reports for a wide range of stakeholders. As an example, our model wasn’t specifically designed to address the Government’s Cost of Teaching requirement but we have been able to create the required […]
READ MOREMarginal 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 MOREThinking 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 MOREIt 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 MOREUniversities 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 MOREFollowing 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 MOREI 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 MOREProfessor William Massy of Stanford University 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. He learned that academics want to be involved in the financial management of their institutions to […]
READ MOREThe following is a simple example of the type of data that is normally hidden, not purposefully, but rather because it’s simply not captured for easy reporting and analysis. This is from our demonstration model, so it consists of dummy data but is representative of how a university would actually operate. The Power BI report below […]
READ MORE