rwebdb: Good News

Yesterday the Delta Project on Postsecondary Costs, Productivity, and Accountability released a web-based tool called Trends in College Spending (TCS).

This is big news for anyone concerned with higher education finances in the United States, as evidenced by coverage in Inside Higher Ed (Follow the Money) and the New York Times (Share of College Spending for Recreation is Rising).

In their news release yesterday (08-July-2010), the Delta Project described TCS this way:

The tool enables reporters, officials, policymakers, and the public to examine spending in such areas as instruction, student services, and research on an institution-by-institution basis. Users can also explore other trends, including the share of education and related costs borne by students and their families, the relationship between spending and degree completion, and whether public resources are spent equitably across public institutions.

You can use TCS to ask such questions as these about higher education institutions:

• Where does their money come from?
• Where does their money go?
• What’s the student share of costs?

TCS is based on a database of approximately 2300 public and private not-for-profit colleges and universities in the United States; enough institutions to enroll about 90% of all students. The time series spans 2002 to 2008 and is based on IPEDS survey data.

Not only did the Delta Project assemble the IPEDS data into a meaningful time series, but they also enhanced its usefulness. Here’s an illustration:

In some instances, the Delta Project adjusted the reported IPEDS data to allow for more consistent comparisons over time and across different reporting standards. Public institutions generally report their financial data using GASB accounting standards while private institutions report under FASB accounting standards. In some instances where reporting standards differed, we adjusted the reported data to harmonize (as much as possible) the expenditure data for public and private institutions.

That is very nice. And it’s suggestive of the care that the Delta Project took in making TCS available to the public. You get a sense of due diligence when cautionary statements like the following appear.

There are significant differences in the institutional missions, structures, and revenue/expenditure patterns across different types of institutions (i.e. Public Research, Public Master’s, Private Bachelor’s etc.), and there are also varying representations of these different institutions within each state. Therefore, we do not recommend analyzing cost structures and spending in higher education at the aggregate state level, because it obscures these important differences.

I spent some time playing with TCS today. It’s a very welcome addition to the tools that people can use to understand why colleges and universities cost so much these days.

If you’ve got some time and the inclination, I’d recommend playing a bit with TCS to get a sense of its capabilities. It’s an impressive product.

Here’s how the Delta Project describes themselves in their press release:

The Delta Project on Postsecondary Education Costs, Productivity and Accountability was formed as an independent, nonprofit research organization to help improve college affordability by focusing on institutional spending and productivity. The project intends to develop metrics and public accountability tools focused on the intersection among resource use, college access and learning outcomes.

In my next post I’ll discuss how TCS and the rwebdb project differ and why there’s plenty of room for each.