The nonpartisan think tank has released key findings of research conducted by Dr. John J. Cheslock, associate professor in education policies studies and a senior research associate in the Center for the Study of Higher Education at Pennsylvania State University.
Cheslock’s report, “Examining Instructional Spending for Accountability and Consumer Information Purposes,” summarizes his analysis of 2014-15 data from the IPEDS Finance Survey. He found that:
Dr. John J. Cheslock
· Public colleges and universities reported significantly higher ratios of instructional spending than private nonprofit schools and for-profit institutions.
· Public schools on average actually spent more on instruction than they received in tuition, in some cases a lot more because of local and state taxes. But even after accounting for tax subsidies, public schools overwhelmingly spent more than half of their combined taxpayer and tuition support on instruction.
· Instructional spending varied widely among nonprofit schools. Numerous spend more than $20,000 per student – in some cases when tuition is less than that amount – because of other revenue such as donations.
