University of California - Financial and Performance Metrics Prepared by NASH, October 2012

University of California

 Financial and Performance
           Metrics
  Prepared by NASH, October 2012

About the Data and Metrics

About the Data
The following system profile was compiled by the National Association of System Heads using data drawn from the
Delta Cost Project IPEDS database.1 This database was developed using publicly available data reported by
institutions to the federal government through a series of annual IPEDS surveys on higher education finance,
enrollments, completions, staffing, and student aid. Adjustments were made to harmonize and standardize the data
as much as possible, to account for changes over time in accounting standards and IPEDS reporting formats. These
adjustments ensure reasonable consistency in the patterns over time. As in most cost studies, this report focuses
only on operating budgets and excludes spending on building or capital improvement projects because of
differences in the ways institutions finance capital costs and the lack of readily available data.

The data for each institution are standardized by full-time-equivalent (FTE) enrollments to account for institutional
size. Financial data is shown in 2010 dollars, adjusted using a fiscal year measure of the Consumer Price Index (CPI).
For most measures and institutions, additional years of data are available at www.tcs-online.org.

About the Metrics
The following metrics are included in the system profile:

1.   Spending per FTE Student - Spending is aggregated into three different snapshots: total expenditures;
     education and general (E&G) spending—a measure that excludes auxiliary activities and hospitals; and
     education and related (E&R) expenses—which further excludes spending for sponsored research and public
     service. Many state policy makers assume that colleges and universities have more revenues than in fact are
     fungible and can be used for core educational purposes. Dividing spending into these categories helps to focus
     on the resources that are going to pay for the core educational functions of the institution.
2.   Education and Related (E&R) Spending per FTE Student – The E&R measure is the best proxy for the average
     “full” cost of educate a student—including instruction, student services, and prorated spending on “overhead”
     functions (academic and institutional support , and operations and maintenance). 2
3.   Spending within E&R - The proportion of E&R spending going to pay for the direct costs of instruction, student
     services, and those that can be attributed to “overhead” functions.
4.    Benefit share of Compensation – The proportion of compensation (related to E&G spending) paying for
     benefits.
5.   Subsidy share versus student share of E&R costs – The portion of E&R spending that is financed through net
     tuition revenue (e.g. “student costs”) and institutional subsidies. This shows what proportion of the costs of
     education are being paid for by students, as contrasted to those that are being subsidized by the state.
6.   Degrees and Completions per 100 FTE – A measure of degree productivity measured by the ratio of total
     degrees and completions (degrees, certificates or other awards) to FTE enrollments. It is a comprehensive
     measure (all degrees, all students) that shows the conversion of enrollments to degrees or certificates, and
     though it is rudimentary, it nonetheless is useful in determining whether degree productivity is
     increasing/decreasing over time. The measures show that most public institutions are improving degree
     productivity, even as they are cutting costs and serving more students.
7.   E&R Costs per Completion – A measure of costs against degree and certificate completions; shows annual E&R
     costs per graduate or other awardees. This is an average measure across all degree programs and types of
     degrees, certificates or other awards. Spending per completion may be affected by changes in attrition and/or
     program mix, suggesting additional research into the cause of cost increases/decreases may be useful.
8.   Annual Credit Hours per Completion – A measure of total undergraduate credit hours in a year against annual
     completions. This is a measure of efficiency, and improvements in this measure mean fewer “lost” credits
     either to excess credits or to student attrition. It is NOT a measure of the average credit hours earned by
     degree recipients.
1. IPEDS data for 2010 was appended to the 1987-2009 Delta IPEDS Database. In some instances, data may have been drawn from a special
    tabulation file that contains ungrouped data (e.g. when parent/child institutions were “grouped” together in the main database but have
    reported their own data since 2004).
2. The E&R formula is as follows: sum (instruction, student services, (education share*sum(academic support, institutional support, operations
    and maintenance); where education share = sum(instruction, student services)/sum(instruction, student services, research, public service).

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