Organizations such as the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and the Knight Commission, as well as many members of the press, have debated for years whether intercollegiate athletics departments make money. In 2003, an NCAA study noted that 85 of the then 117 institutions in Division I-A, the highest competitive level of…

Provides guidelines for building a consistent and reliable database of expenditures within an institution of higher education. Stresses the importance of involving key constituencies, including both data providers and data users, in decisions about building the data elements for such a database and the resulting campus cost studies. (DB)

Stresses the importance of common understandings of cost definitions and data collection in order to create reliable databases with optimal utility for inter-institutional analysis. Examines definitions of common expenditure categories, discusses cost-accumulation rules governing financial reporting, and explains differences between direct costs…