Trends in College Spending 1999-2009-Where does the money come from? Where does it go? What does it buy? (Delta Project)

            The Delta Projects mission is to “help improve college affordability by controlling costs and improving productivity. The work is animated by the belief that college costs can be contained without sacrificing access or educational quality through better use of data to inform strategic decision making.” (Delta Project, 2010)  This non-profit organization is committed to utilizing analytic tools: 1. Document trends in college spending; 2. Understand where and why college costs are increasing; 3. Translate technical accounting information into benchmarks for institutional and policy audiences; 4. Identify and promote best practices that generate the greatest return on investment for access and success; and 5. Promote institutional and policy strategies for improved productivity (Delta Project, 2010).

In a report by Delta, in September 2011, shows an unfortunate growing gap between public and private institutions (Hudnell & Wellman, 2011).  According to the recent report ‘Trends in College Spending 1999-2009-Where does the money come from?  Where does it go?  What does it buy?,’ there has a drastic shift in spending and enrollments when you compare public and private institutions. Two primary themes have been identified to be major contributors to the current funding patterns:  privatization and polarization (Desrochers & Wellman, 2011, p. 45).   Private institutions have increased their spending on each student, but have few new students in the last decade.  Public institutions have had to deal with less funding and a great influx of new students, while community colleges have seen a 1.6 million student increase from 1999-2009 (Desrochers & Wellman, 2011. p. 9). 

To conclude their report they recommend that in order to properly finance higher education, there must be an increase in public interest in higher education (Desrochers & Wellman, 2011, p. 45).  One way in which to increase public interest is by increasing our countries educational attainment levels by increasing access to higher education and increasing degree production.  In order to meet the desired levels to succeed, there must be in increase in higher education attainment by an average of 4% every year (Desrochers & Wellman, 2011, p. 45). 

References

Delta Cost Project.  (2010). Retrieved on October 19, 2011, from http://www.deltacostproject.org/

Desrochers, D. M. & Wellman, J. V. (2011). Trends in College Spending 1999-2009-Where does the money come from?  Where does it go?  What does it buy? Retrieved from Delta Project on Postsecondary Education Costs, Productivity, and Accountability website: http://www.deltacostproject.org/resources/pdf/Trends2011_Final_090711.pdf

Hudnell, K. & Wellman, J. College spending impacted by the recession: Cost cutting, tuition increases and growing gaps. (2011, September).  Delta Project on Postsecondary Education Costs, Productivity, and Accountability.  Retrieved from http://www.deltacostproject.org/resources/pdf/deltanewsreleasesept10.pdf