As the Great Recession of 2008‒2009 began to recede, several academic majors began to see significant growth in terms of undergraduate enrollment. One such example occurred at a private university, where the School of Engineering experienced double-digit growth year over year between 2009 and 2015. In addition to national trends resulting from the recession, this growth was driven by a relatively new dean, who collaborated closely with the community and local corporations to develop a culture that prioritized applied learning and problem solving to create a better society. As enrollments grew, there were limited resources available to keep up with student demand. This led to a number of pressing issues, such as classrooms being filled beyond capacity, engineering labs lacking enough equipment, and increasing times for students to get their degrees. This led to frustration on the part of the faculty, as the institution had a robust and transparent decision support tool that showed it had the lowest instructional cost per credit and that it was in the 10th percentile in terms of resources per student FTE when compared with similar schools. Despite this, each budget planning cycle resulted in incremental changes that did not match the increasing revenues generated by the school. Over time, faculty had difficulty maintaining the ever-increasing workload, and academic quality began to suffer. Not surprisingly, engineering enrollments began to decline, with an overall enrollment decline of 14% between 2018 and 2022.

Budgeting Approaches and Academic Quality

The purpose of the story I shared to open the section is twofold. First, it emphasizes the nature, and consequences, of an incremental budget process that does not adjust resources when program enrollments are growing or declining. This approach often leads to a misalignment of resources that may result in poor academic quality and decreased student persistence. Second, the presence of a robust decision support tool does not, by itself, ensure that academic programs are being adequately assessed so that the resources necessary to deliver the curriculum are aligned with the current state of growth, maturity, or decline. I offer this concluding section in the guide as a roadmap for institutions to develop a purposeful relationship between informed decision making and meaningful budget planning.

Highlighting the Collaborative and Formative Nature of the Decision Support Tool

If I have done my job effectively, the previous sections in this guide provided a high-level overview for implementing a collaborative, transparent, and comprehensive approach to creating and maintaining an academic cost stewardship culture that helps to inform decision making. Now, we transition to what I consider to be a crucial step necessary for fostering the development of an informed decision support culture across academic disciplines. To set the stage, I want to provide a recap of four key elements referenced throughout this guide, as they are critical for the successful alignment of the budget process and the decision support tool.

• Acknowledging the Challenge: If you have stayed with us to this point of the guide, you likely understand the challenges facing higher education and the importance of seeking academic cost information to help you and your institution address these challenges. In his book Like Nobody’s Business: An Insider’s Guide to How US University Finances Really Work, Andrew C. Comrie wrote, “Budgets do not make decisions, people do. At all times we must ensure that decisions are made first on the basis of academic and societal priorities.” Having developed more than 40 academic cost frameworks, I am in full agreement with this statement. I encourage those undertaking these efforts to consider how the successful alignment of the decision support tool with the budget process will enable academic leaders to make informed decisions. It is also critical for this process to include incentives for making sound decisions that benefit both the program and the institution.

•  Collaborating with Faculty and Staff: Although I emphasize collaboration in Sections 6 and 7, this concept underlies many of the concepts introduced throughout this guide. Our experience suggests there is tremendous value gained by developing these tools in collaboration with colleagues across campus. I highlight two primary reasons to support this point:

  • Using a collaborative approach inclusive of faculty and staff often challenges preconceived notions of how current academic operations have become the norm. Uncovering the customizations and one-off decisions during this collaboration identifies and often leads to the resolution of obstacles that may have hindered informed decision making in the past.

  • Creating an environment in which faculty and staff work together to solve a common issue will have lasting positive effects beyond the development of a decision support tool. The continuation of these newfound relationships will continue to provide benefits in areas that may have been pain points or bottlenecks across key administrative areas in the past.

•  Aligning Resources: Understanding the intricacies and nuances of institutional resources in the form of administrative activities (e.g., information technology, finances, and human resources) often calls attention to the lack of integration between administrative units. Our experience in this space suggests there are many more commonalities than differences when it comes to information storage, maintenance, and dissemination. Yet, many higher education institutions do not have a mechanism in place to resolve the occasional disagreements, resulting in misunderstandings and negatively impacting operational and managerial activities. Although some of these differences take considerable time to resolve, the majority may be corrected quickly, resulting in improved alignment of administrative activities with support of the academic mission.

• Taking a Formative Learning Approach: As detailed in Sections 5 and 11, the information derived from a robust academic program cost tool can be overwhelming for a community to consider if it has been historically reliant on an incremental budget process and limited cost information. Our intent is not to rehash the importance of creating a formative learning environment here; however, I emphasize this approach once again as it underscores the need to accept variability and mistakes as necessary for the advancement of the institution’s success and long-term viability of aligning the decision support tool with the institution’s budget planning cycle. It is just as important, and necessary, to have a plan and the resources necessary for collaborating with concerned faculty and staff so that these concerns and errors or misunderstandings can be addressed, and the project can succeed.