This report is the first in a series that unpacks the barriers to access that families face, the variety of solutions that navigation organizations have developed, and the challenges that limit the reach and impact of those solutions. This series offers recommendations for how to help navigators address these challenges and support more families…

This case provides a summary of a situation in which a newly appointed superintendent and his new chief financial officer of a midsized urban school district uncover a massive set of fiscal problems which had been previously hidden from the Board and most other stakeholders. How do the district's top leaders make decisions about how to address the…

Academic advisors likely will encounter financially at-risk (FAR) students who jeopardize their chances of completing a college education and compromise their economic futures by accruing burdensome debt. Students may use loans and credit cards to pay for the necessities of a college education, but many also generate personal debt by financing…

Boosting early retirement in cash-strapped districts does not hurt students' math and reading scores, according to new studies released at the American Economic Association meeting, but pension-incentive programs may cost schools some of their most effective teachers. Separate studies of teachers in California, Illinois, and North Carolina paint a…

On January 26, 2009, the Brandeis University Board of Trustees voted unanimously to close the Rose Art Museum (Waltham, Massachusetts). The proceeds from the subsequent auction were to be reinvested in the university to ensure its long-term financial health. The reaction to the decision by campus constituencies provides a case study to show the…

Ultimately, making financial aid "freshman friendly" also makes financial aid "sophomore friendly," "junior friendly," and "senior friendly." Indiana University has in place an Office of Enrollment Management (OEM) model that includes focused financial aid packaging strategies complemented by unique contact…

The treatment of uncertainty in the business classroom has been dominated by the application of risk theory to the utility-maximization framework. Nonetheless, the relevance of the standard risk model as a positive description of economic decision making often has been called into question in theoretical work. In this article, the authors offer an…

Every college and university experiences some form of financial hardship at one time or another. The financial problems plaguing local and state governments in recent years have been sufficient by themselves to create serious problems for institutions across the country. At the very least, an institution's financial difficulties can lead to the…

A summary of the 1982 Sonoma State University case of dismissal of 24 tenured faculty members for financial reasons provides background regarding financial exigency, faculty participation in decisions leading to the layoff, provision for individual hearings, notice, efforts to reinstate and relocate, and teaching service areas. (MSE)

The evolution of management information systems in higher education is traced, with contributing factors noted. Benefits are summarized and shortcomings are discussed with emphasis on their limitations as the basis for resource allocation during an era of budgetary stringency. (Author/JMD)

Summarizes some ways Massachusetts schools have trimmed their budgets in response to Proposition 2 1/2 and offers suggestions concerning how other schools or districts could go about doing the same. (JM)

Conditions and management procedures used in Dutch universities are discussed. Attention is directed to: (1) the structure of higher education in the Netherlands -- especially the University of Utrecht, its administrative procedures, and decision-making process; (2) the nature of the problems the university faced and the ineffective way in which…

Two case studies of states that illustrate innovations in higher education budgeting are presented, based on a project of the Education Commission of the States. The two states, Colorado and Minnesota, took different approaches. In Colorado, the impetus for change came from key legislative members interested in providing greater autonomy to the…

The successful integration of microcomputer support to help prepare for an anticipated budget crisis at the University of Illinois at Chicago is described. The IBM Personal Computer and VisiCalc software were key tools in the decision support system. When campus executives were instructed to cut budgets and reallocate funds to produce a…

A model for the analysis of college closing is tested and illustrated using the existing literature of college closings. Since the literature on college closing provided little analysis or material upon which theory might be developed, attention was directed to the work that has been done on the somewhat parallel subject of the closing of…