In an era of increasing financial scrutiny and accountability in higher education, understanding the cost of program delivery is critical. At Marshall University, the Institutional Research and Planning (IRP) team has developed a detailed methodology to analyze instructional costs across academic programs. This approach offers transparency and the ability to compare costs to the course level effectively.<\/p>\n
Higher education institutions face growing challenges, from managing budgets to ensuring tuition affordability. Analyzing program costs helps:<\/p>\n
By breaking down instructional costs at the section, course, program, and college level institutions gain a clear view of how tuition dollars are used to support teaching and conversely, the cost of instruction as measured through instructional salaries.<\/p>\n
To achieve this, we created a Power BI dashboard that allows university leaders to compare instructional costs at multiple levels. Below, we detail the methodology used to build this analysis.<\/p>\n
This allows us to model instructional cost by section, course, a student’s major, an instructor, etc. since we have both a tuition $ assessed for each hour and a $ per hour of responsibility of instruction.<\/p>\n
This was the first step in determining the true cost of a program as instructional cost is typically the largest expense in an academic program. Future work will add in the cost of supplies, staffing, facilities, and other associated expenses<\/strong>, providing a more comprehensive view of program delivery costs.<\/p>\n The ability to break down program delivery costs equips leadership with actionable insights. For example:<\/p>\n The Power BI dashboard built from this analysis allows stakeholders to explore these insights dynamically, supporting informed decision-making. By linking costs to tuition revenue, it also provides a clearer picture of program ROI and sustainability.<\/p>\n For leadership, this data provides the foundation to ask critical questions:<\/p>\n Understanding the cost of program delivery is not a one-time exercise. As instructional methods evolve, student enrollment shifts, and institutional priorities adapt, maintaining an up-to-date analysis ensures the university remains agile, sustainable, and transparent in its financial decisions. By expanding this analysis to include additional cost factors like facilities and staffing, we can offer a full cost-to-value perspective for every program.<\/p>\n We are committed to providing the tools and data needed to navigate these challenges. Our work supports strategic decisions that ensure Marshall University continues to serve its students effectively and efficiently.<\/p>\n Driving all decisions, with data!<\/p>\n Brian M. Morgan In an era of increasing financial scrutiny and accountability in higher education, understanding the cost of program delivery is critical. At Marshall University, the Institutional Research and Planning (IRP) team has developed a detailed methodology to analyze instructional costs across academic programs. This approach offers transparency and the ability to compare costs to the course<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":78,"featured_media":1504,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[70],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1503","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-data2decisions"],"acf":[],"fimg_url":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/irp\/files\/121924.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/irp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1503","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/irp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/irp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/irp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/78"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/irp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1503"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/irp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1503\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1505,"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/irp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1503\/revisions\/1505"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/irp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1504"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/irp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1503"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/irp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1503"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/irp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1503"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
\n
Looking Ahead<\/h3>\n
\nChief Data Officer, Marshall University<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"