The author reports on the reigning economic calculus that helps to drive constant expansion and poor utilization of space on many campuses. The author states that colleges could charge for utilities, which might encourage departments to save energy. Most American colleges do not charge for space--in part because doing so would raise the hackles of…

The Jones Theatre at Washington State University is getting a $500,000 face-lift this summer. A construction crew has already ripped out its 500 orange and blue seats and is replacing them with new ones covered in a wine-colored fabric. The theater's walls are being painted a light beige, and a new set of black velour curtains will grace the…

This article reports that the Higher Education Price Index (HEPI), a widely used measure of colleges' costs, rose by 3.6 percent for the 2008 fiscal year, which ended on June 30. But even as they reported the good news of that moderate increase, experts at the Commonfund Institute who maintain the index noted that broader economic trends could…

Faculty pay is a big part of college budgets, but it is not what has driven tuition increases. In this article, the author talks about faculty pay and examines why it is accounted for large increases in college tuition. According to the 2004 American Association of University Professors report that although faculty and staff salary increases…

This article reports that nearly half of the nation's largest athletics programs have doubled or tripled their recruitment spending over the past decade, as their pursuit of elite athletes intensifies and becomes more national in scope. Forty-eight percent of NCAA Division I athletics departments at least doubled their recruiting budgets from 1997…

This article examines how the University of Kansas has changed in 20 years. Twenty years ago, annual operating expenses for the University of Kansas campus here were $204-million. Today the institution spends more than triple that, even though its enrollment, 26,000, is almost exactly the same. During the same period, tuition and fees for in-state…

The economic outlook may be sour for Wall Street's investment banks and for homeowners who took out mortgages they could not really afford, but campus planners and architects say that--so far, at least--colleges' construction plans are largely unaffected by the downturn. Some colleges, in fact, are trying to speed up projects to limit the damage…

As higher-education institutions across the country struggle with constrained sources of funds, more than 80 percent of state institutions said they rely on energy-management programs to reduce operating costs, according to a report released by the American Association of State Colleges and Universities (Aascu). The report, based on a survey of…

Many professors and administrators express a common complaint about how universities work--that employees and units are often charged fees for work or services they receive from other campus units. This practice, often called "chargebacks," is much misunderstood because it seems counterintuitive: If you are employed by the university, why should…