Opening Up the 'Black Box' of Higher Ed Finances

Colleges and universities should embrace a new financial model in which campus financial data are linked to student outcomes information and shared much more transparently with key campus constituencies, a new report from the American Council on Education and the TIAA-CREF Institute argues. The paper, "Evolving Higher Education Business Models: Leading With Data to Deliver Results," asserts that giving faculty members and administrators better data about costs, revenues and outcomes at the program level will allow institutions to make better decisions, involving all key constituents, about which programs are effective and efficient.