AN INVESTIGATION INTO RESOURCE MANAGEMENT IN HIGHER EDUCATION THROUGH THE APPLICATION OF INPUT-OUTPUT THEORY

The purpose of this study is to investigate the applicability of the input-output method to resource management in higher education. Specifically, to develop a model or family of models that can use as inputs the cost and other resource information presently available in higher education management information systems, that can provide information about certain quantitative cost factors and cost dimensions, and that can make predictions about the costs or savings associated with resource management decisions under consideration by the governing body. The objective of resource management in higher education is to relate inputs of the educational process into demands for courses, faculty, facilities, and support activities. Several models such as Computerized Analytical Methods in Planning University Systems (CAMPUS) and Resource Requirements Prediction Model (RRPM) have been developed since 1965 to assist decisionmakers in their performance of this function. Although they require a relatively large staff to operate and are voracious consumers of input, these models have been useful in those institutions where they have been employed. Since these models were designed primarily as long-range planning tools and are structurally quite complex, they are not readily usable to answer short-range, "what if" questions. A particularly onerous problem is that of determining the indirect, or overhead, costs associated with the operation of an institution's primary programs. These costs are currently estimated by some surrogate technique such as cost-estimating relationships (CER) that are derived by linear regression of historical data that may or may not apply to the situation under study. Input-output analysis is concerned with studying the interdependence of the producing and consuming units in an economy. It addresses the interrelations among the sectors that purchase goods and services from each other and then produce goods and services for consumption by final demand sectors. Wassily Leontief exploited the long recognized fact that the objective of economic activity is to satisfy a final demand and developed his "Open-Static" model to establish a relationship between the total output of the production and final demand sectors of an economy. It is hypothesized that Leontief's "Open-Static" model and the other macro-economic models developed in the input-output method have micro-analogs that can be useful in the management of resources by decisionmakers in higher education. The hypothesis was validated by: (1) Demonstrating the applicability of the assumptions of input-output theory to economic structure of an institution of higher learning. (2) Demonstrating that the models possessed those characteristics that a model should have to be useful in cost analysis. (3) Constructing a family of specialized mosels to portray the economic system represented by the National Defense University. (4) Demonstrating how these models could be used to determine various cost factors and cost dimensions and to answer representative cost questions facing resource managers. It was concluded that the input-output method provides a hierarchy of internally consistent models that eliminates the need for surrogate techniques. The relationships among the support programs themselves are established in the flow model and remain unchanged in all subsequent models. The Leontief "Open-Static" Model provides resource managers with a straightforward method of predicting the impact on the support programs of changes in the primary programs, a capability heretofore not available in higher education.