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College Finance & Operations

America spends nearly $700 billion a year on higher education, including paying instructors, funding research, keeping the facilities running and much more. At public universities, the biggest chunk of this comes from taxpayers, who deserve accountability for their money. So do students and their families, who fork over tuition and fees, and a fast-growing additional amount for room and board. At private, nonprofit institutions, the proportions are reversed, with more money coming from students than from taxpayers.

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More About College Finance & Operations

Data/Research: College Finance & Operations
Reporting on higher education finance and operations requires background information on how colleges are funded, whether they are financially secure and how their facilities are maintained
History and Background: College Finance & Operations
Little has changed regarding the financial underpinnings of American higher education in the nearly 400 years since Rev. John Harvard gave his library to what would become known — in commemoration o
Glossary: College Finance & Operations
Some key concepts explained for a better understanding of this topic
The Role of Endowments
Those vaunted multibillion-dollar university and college endowments that get so much attention are worth a closer look
Decoding Financial Aid’s Impact on College Price
Hidden deep inside College Navigator is a particularly helpful clue to a university or college’s financial health: the proportion of its entering students who get institutional financial aid
How to Investigate a College’s Spending Trends
By definition, university finance and operations data is scattered among myriad sources, including everything from financial audits to enrollment reports and financial aid disbursements
The Other Kind of College Debt
While much of the attention about higher education borrowing is focused on student loans, universities and colleges have taken out extensive amounts of debt and collectively owe about a quarter of a t
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