Institutional Expenditure and Faculty Salaries Under Responsibility Center Management

• In Event: Saturday Roundtable Session 9:45 am
  In Roundtable Session: Equity Unveiled: Innovations in Higher Education Policy and Access (Table 35)

Abstract

Responsibility Center Management (RCM), a budget model based on financial incentives and decentralization of budget autonomy and responsibility, has increasingly spread across public higher education institutions in the United States. While existing studies have documented RCM’s effect on outcomes like revenue and completion, the literature lacks quantitative studies on how RCM influences institutional behavior. Using difference-in-differences and event study analysis on longitudinal data of public research universities, this study examines how RCM is associated with institutional expenditure and average faculty salaries. The results indicate that RCM is associated with increased expenditure for academic support and higher average faculty salaries across all faculty levels.

Author

• Junghee Choi, University of Oklahoma