Learning Resources

Abstract: This study examines the relationships among college prices, expenditures, and revenues within four groups of public institutions and three groups of private not-for-profit institutions. To provide context for the analysis, aggregate trends for 1988–89 to 1997–98 were compiled. These data were analyzed through the use of statistical modeling techniques, in which separate models for the public and private not-for-profit sectors were identified and updated with more recent data. In each of these models, the associations between “sticker prices” (published tuition levels) and costs, revenues, and other factors were explored to provide some insight into the nature of higher education finance.

Abstract: This publication, a follow-up to the popular Planning for Student Services: Best Practices for the 21st Century, introduces the topic of web portals and call centers needed to support web services. It also describes the lessons learned from one-stop centers, which are causing facilities to be redesigned and new service career paths to be defined. Services have become a strategic issue for institutions, and web strategies—driven by web services—have become critical as well. The authors, who are among IBM best practice partners, present case studies of their institutions by describing their experiences in these areas. They also show how they have been successful in integrating technology into their student services projects, redesigning their processes, implementing change, and extending their brand.

Abstract: This article examines the academic planning implications of “The Senior Citizens’ Freedom to Work Act of 2000.” The act sharply reduces Social Security retirement benefit penalties previously imposed on 65- to 69-year-old professionals who earned more than nominal incomes after enrolling in the program, potentially delaying their retirement decisions. Further, the average salary level of senior professors in U.S. colleges and universities places them among those who will most heavily benefit from the act, which might change the age composition of academic faculties significantly over time. This article closes with a discussion of the act’s potential impact on faculty turnover rates, academic staffing patterns, and the age distribution of academic faculties.

Abstract: The quality of campus life in large universities has declined over the years as faculty have given up responsibility for student life outside the classroom and institutions have become ever more bureaucratized. To solve this problem, universities should establish systems of small, decentralized academic communities modeled ultimately on the residential colleges of the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge. In the United States, Harvard and Yale Universities first adopted this residential college model in the 1930s, and it is now spreading to many institutions, public and private, large and small.

Abstract: The purpose of this article is to emphasize the concept of utopia, which universities have used throughout history in developing their “spaces of knowledge.” This concept should continue to be an objective in the 21st century as universities look for paradigms in the architectural layout of their institutions. The implicit principle of this article is that good architecture is a necessary component in achieving educational excellence.