Adjusting College Cost Figures for Non-credit Enrollments

Abstract

Community college practitioners are quick to note that official IPEDS analyses of expenditures and revenues per FTE overstate the amount they spend on each student. This results from the fact that enrollments in their non-credit courses are not included in the FTE count but expenditures for these courses are. While this situation may also occur in four-year colleges, the extent to which it occurs is thought to be less of a problem in determining costs per student. Using data from three states, this is the first study of its kind that examines this measurement issue. With it comes an invitation to readers to participate (crowd sourcing) in the study as joint authors(s) by contributing data and their analysis.