The following is an extract from this article in NACUBO Business Officer Magazine September 2019 by Margo Vanover Porter and discusses the Pilbara model at the University of Maryland. The model was implemented in 2017 with our US consulting partner, Grant Thornton and is updated on an annual basis. After attending a NACUBO conference […]
READ MORESaskatoon, in the heart of the Canadian province of Saskatchewan sits further north than Hobart is south, by about 10° in latitude, (for the navigators amongst you). As the crow flies, it is 14,612 kilometers from Adelaide by the shortest route across the Pacific. Winter temperatures in Saskatoon get serious, with the thermometer hovering around of -19° […]
READ MOREThe Pilbara Higher Ed conference was held September 3-4 in Brisbane at the Rydges Hotel in Southbank. It was a great crowd and generated a lot of interesting discussions over the two day event. The focus of the conference was Data Driven Decision Making and in particular how cost and predictive models can be used […]
READ MORESkip the Rapid Prototype and go straight to the Rapid Fully Functioning Model It’s a common situation around the globe for financial analysts working for Higher Education institutions. Some type of looming crisis, major project or big decision requires detailed financial analysis… or as has happened here in Australia, the Government now requires universities to […]
READ MOREEvery 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 MOREPrevious 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 MORECombining 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 MORETuition 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 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 […]
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