Using information from Cornell (committee recently suggested moving to more centralized), Boston University (centralized), Harvard (decentralized) and Vanderbilt (recently centralized), Inside Higher Ed's Jack Stripling does a good job of covering the ground on the constant tension between centralized and decentralized budgeting. 

The two primary camps of higher education budgetary strategy have for years been wrestling over whether it’s better to dole out revenues from a central administration or allow individual colleges to control their own financial destinies. With an economic crisis now draining dollars from college coffers across the country, that question is yet again top of mind on several campuses.

The debate over the two models essentially boils down to whether colleges or academic units within a university should bear their own expenses and keep their share of tuition, grants and gifts – “Each Tub On Its Own Bottom,” it’s often said – or be given a share of resources from the central administration based on established institutional priorities.

For some scholars of higher education, it’s predictable that several institutions have moved toward or considered centralized models amid the economic downturn. Cases in point include Vanderbilt University, which adopted greater budgetary centralization in the 2009-10 academic year, and Cornell University, where a task force’s recommendations this year were widely viewed as a move toward more central budgetary control.