Paul T. Brinkman

Student price response in higher education: the student demand studies

What happens to enrollments when colleges and universities raise their prices? Who, if anyone, is sent away? What is the net impact of higher prices and reduced enrollments upon institutional financial ledgers? These questions have been investigated in what have come to be called the student demand studies, the phrase originating in economics as an outgrowth of demand theory. Demand theory holds that the quantity of a particular good or service demanded is a function of price, the money income of the buyer, the prices of other goods and services, and the buyers tastes or preferences. The theory as applied to higher education has been used to suggest that (1) enrollment rates will be negatively associated with prices charged students, especially tuition prices; (2) enrollment rates will be positively associated with amounts spent on student aid, since student aid can be viewed as reducing net prices or increasing student money income; and (3) enrollments in higher education institutions or groups of institutions will be associated positively with the tuition prices charged by competitors for example, public college enrollments with private college tuitions and vice versa as students exercise their preferences.

Economies of Scale in Higher Education: Sixty Years of Research

Abstract: This study synthesizes empirical research on the effects of scale (enrollment size) on average cost per student in higher education using a meta-analytic approach. Results are reported separately for two-year colleges, four-year colleges, and universities, and for expenditures in several areas including instruction and administration. The institution is the primary unit of analysis. Scale effects are most noticeable at low enrollment levels and for administrative functions.

Factors Affecting Instructional Costs at Major Research Universities.

The purpose of this article is to analyze in quantitative terms why unit instructional costs differ among major research universities. Previous studies have uncovered many of the factors that account for costs in higher education. The primary task here is to specify the relative importance of these and additional factors. Particular attention is given to the effects of enrollment size on unit instructional costs.

The Financial Impact of Part-Time Enrollments on Two-Year Colleges: A Marginal Cost Perspective.

The number of part-time students attending public two-year colleges increased rapidly during the 1970s. By the end of the decade, aggregate part-time enrollment constituted about 63 percent of total headcount enrollment at those institutions [26]. Concern has been expressed about the financial implications of this trend from an institutional perspective. The question is whether the conventional ratio (three-to-one or so) for converting part-time to full-time-equivalent (FTE) enrollment accurately represents the actual costs of providing services to part-time versus full-time students [see, for example, 1, 23, 29, 39]. This question has not been explored empirically in the literature except for Kress [22], tangentially, and Brinkman [4].1 The conventional three-to-one ratio is not a hard and fast rule, but it is grounded in typical student behavior, at least in the instructional area. Although national data on student credit hours are not available, a sampling of reports published by state agencies indicates that a part-time student at a public two-year college generally does take about one-third as many credits as a full-time student, with some variation by state [7, 28, 29, 33, 38]. Comparable data about institutional services other than instruction are not available. Some would argue (see Ohio Board of Regents [30] for an opinion survey on this issue) that for many of the activities included within student services, a part-time student may require as much by way of institutional resources

Effective interinstitutional comparisons

Getting the most from interinstitutional comparisons requires some effort. Careful planning will increase the chances of success. Long-run effects may have the greatest impact.