Analysis of university costs at the UGC

✍ Scribed by J. C. Walne

• Publisher: Springer
• Year: 1973
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 489 KB
• Volume: 2
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0018-1560
• DOI: 10.1007/bf00137767

✦ Synopsis

which, once constructed, were regarded as free goods. It was also the case in respect of current items of expenditure, for under the present system of British university financing and planning, universities know in advance, subject to certain specific exceptions, their income for a five-year period and the approximate number and type of students they will enrol. Thus cost per student over the quinquennium has been determined before the students enter. Once the quinquennium has begun there are few real ways to effect economies since revenue and therefore expenditure have already been determined, nor is there any incentive for universities to cut costs per graduate. The critical time to achieve economies is therefore before quinquennial recurrent grants are fixed, and the power to do this lies with the University Grants Committee and the Department of Education and Science, not with the individual universities. Thereafter universities would need to react to such economies by implementing them as painlessly as possible.