Common Cost Accounting Manual

 

 

Preface

This manual contains information and instructions to assist in preparing the annual Common Cost Accounting Reports (CCAR) and other related reports for each of the universities comprising the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education.  This manual supersedes previous Common Cost Accounting (CCA) Manuals.

 

The CCAR provides important financial, student, and faculty information in three formats.

 

PCS Categories—reflect each university’s total cost in the traditional functional expenditures categories (and subcategories).  Total Costs related to category 1.0. Instruction are categorized further into Program and Discipline categories.  It is important to note that total costs reported in the CCAR must reconcile with the total costs reported in each university’s audited financial statements.

 

Program Categories—reflect each university’s total credit hours produced (CHP), full-time equivalent (FTE) students, FTE faculty, total program cost, cost per FTE student, FTE student/faculty ratio, and direct instructional cost per credit hour, for academic programs offered by the universities.  This data is reflected separately for lower, upper, masters, and doctorate levels.  Program costs represent the cost of educating students who are enrolled in a certain academic program, i.e., an academic major.

 

Discipline Categories—reflect the same detailed information as Program Categories, but represent only the costs specifically associated with delivering courses within a certain academic discipline.

 

 

I.              CCA Expenditure Categories

 

Overview

The rationale of the Expenditure Categories is to provide a mechanism that will facilitate organization of data and use of various planning and management tools.  Under CCA, the functions of higher education are divided into the following major classifications.

 

Primary

Support

1.0

Instruction

4.0

Academic Support

2.0

Research

5.0

Student Service

3.0

Public Service

6.0

Institutional Administration

 

 

7.0

Operations and Maintenance of Plant

 

 

8.0

Scholarships and Fellowships

 

 

9.0

Auxiliary Enterprises

 

A.    Primary Programs

 

1.0.   Instruction Program

The cost center accounting structure is based upon departmental organization, i.e., costs are collected and charged to academic departments (e.g., Biology Department, Mathematics Department, Elementary Education Department).  Departmental costs, while important from a financial control point of view, are not the only information required for meaningful inter-institutional comparison.  CCA provides an additional entity, the academic degree program, which is another measure of institutional academic output.  To collect data on degree program levels requires the translation of costs from the current department structure to a degree program structure.

 

The instruction program consists of those program elements whose outputs are eligible primarily for credit in meeting specified formal curricular requirements, leading toward a particular postsecondary degree or certificate granted by the institution.

 

This category should include expenditures for all activities that are part of an institution’s instruction program.  Expenditures for credit and noncredit courses for academic, vocational, and technical instruction; remedial and tutorial instruction; and regular, special, and extension sessions should be included.  Cooperative teacher payments also should be included in instruction and reflected in the discipline that generates the student teaching credits.

 

Expenditures for departmental research and public service that are not budgeted separately should be included in this classification.  This category excludes expenditures for academic administration when the primary assignment is administration, e.g., academic deans.  However, expenditures for department chairperson, in which instruction is still an important role of the administrator, are included in this category.

 

This category includes general academic instruction, community education, and preparatory/remedial instruction.

 

1.1.  General Academic Instruction.  Includes expenditures for instructional activities that are (1) carried out during the State System fiscal reporting year (Second Session Summer, Fall, Spring, First Session Summer order) in accordance with GASB, (2) associated with academic offerings described by National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) discipline categories 01 through 52 (53 undeclared major), and (3) offered for credit as part of a formal postsecondary education degree or certificate program.  Any instructional activity falling within these NCES categories and offered for credit would be included.  However, this subcategory does not include instructional offerings that are part of programs leading toward degrees or certificates at levels below the higher education level, such as adult basic education.

 

Note:  Release time for a department chairperson, assistant department chair, graduate program coordinator, and internship coordinators is now included in the Instruction in subcategory 1.1. classification rather than Academic Support (4.6.).  This change is based upon the assumption that a department chairperson and/or assistant chairperson have, as their primary function, instruction.  Part III, A.1 (Definitions) indicates how the costs are to be distributed.

 

1.2.  Community Education.  Includes expenditures for instructional activities that do not result in credit toward any formal postsecondary degree or certificate.  It includes noncredit instructional offerings carried out by the institution’s extension division as well as noncredit offerings that are part of the adult education or continuing education program.  This subcategory also includes expenditures for activities associated with programs leading toward an award or certificate at a level below the higher education level, such as adult basic education (GED).

 

1.3.  Preparatory/Remedial Instruction (only noncredit-generating instructional activities). Includes expenditures for instructional activities that give students the basic knowledge and skills required by the institution before they can undertake formal academic coursework leading to a postsecondary degree or certificate.  Such activities, supplemental to the normal academic program, generally are termed preparatory, remedial, developmental, or special educational services.  These instructional offerings may be taken prior to or along with coursework leading to a degree or certificate.  Only offerings provided specifically for required preparatory or remedial skills or knowledge should be included in this category.  For example, if students may satisfy preparatory requirements by taking offerings provided primarily for other than remedial or preparatory purposes, those offerings should be classified appropriately elsewhere.

 

2.0.   Research

This category should include all expenditures for activities specifically organized to produce research outcomes, whether commissioned by an agency external to the institution or separately budgeted by an organizational unit or cost center within the institution.  This category does not include restricted expenditures except those applied to faculty release time since all faculty workload must be included, and is not limited necessarily to sponsored research since internally supported research programs, if separately budgeted, might be included in this category under the circumstances described above.

 

2.1.  Individual and Project Research.  Includes expenditures for research activities that are managed with academic departments.  Such activities may have been undertaken as the result of a research contract or grant or through a specific allocation of the institution’s general resources.

 

3.0.   Public Service

The objective of a public service program is to provide services that are beneficial to groups external to the institution through programs established to make various unique resources and capabilities of higher education available to the public.

 

This category should include funds expended for activities that are established primarily to provide noninstructional services beneficial to individuals and groups external to the institution.  These activities include community service programs (excluding instructional activities) and cooperative extension services.  Included in this category are conferences, institutes, general advisory services, reference bureaus, radio and television, consulting, and similar non-instructional services to particular sectors of the community.  This category includes community service, public broadcasting services, and direct patient care.

 

3.1.  Community Service.  Includes expenditures for activities to provide general community services, excluding instructional activities.  Community service activities make various resources and special capabilities that exist within the institution available to the public.  Examples include conferences and institutes, general advisory services and reference bureaus, consultation, testing services (e.g., soil testing, carbon dating, and structural testing), and similar activities.  The activities included in this subcategory generally are sponsored and managed outside the context of both agricultural and urban extension programs and of the institution’s public broadcasting operation.

 

3.2.  Public Broadcasting Services.  Includes expenditures for operation and maintenance broadcasting services operated outside the context of the institution’s instruction, research, and academic support programs.  Thus, excluded from this subcategory are broadcasting services conducted primarily in support of instruction (which should be classified in the subcategory “Ancillary Support”) and broadcasting services that are operated primarily as a student service activity (which should be classified in the subcategory “Social and Cultural Development”).

 

3.3.  Direct Patient Care.  Includes expenditures for operation and maintenance of clinical nursing services.  This should not include expenditures for clinical services provided to students.

 

B.    Support Programs

 

4.0.  Academic Support

The objectives of the academic support program are to provide support services that are an integral part of the operations of the primary programs.

 

This category should include funds expended primarily to provide support services for the institution’s primary missions—instruction, research, and public service.  It includes:

 

(1)       retention, preservation, and display of educational materials, e.g., libraries, museums, and galleries;

(2)       provision of services that directly assist the academic functions of the institution, such as demonstration schools associated with a department, school, or college of education;

(3)       media such as audio-visual services, and technology such as computing support;

(4)       academic administration (including academic deans, but not department chairpersons) and personnel development providing administration support and management direction to the three primary missions; and

(5)       separately budgeted support for course and curriculum development.

 

This category includes libraries, museums and galleries, educational media services, academic computing support, ancillary support, academic administration, course and curriculum development, and academic personnel development.

 

4.1.  Libraries.  Includes expenditures for centralized activities that support directly the operation of a catalogued or otherwise classified collection of published materials.  This category includes expenditures associated with the Keystone Library Network and other consortia.

 

4.2.   Museums and Galleries.  Includes expenditures for centralized activities that provide for collection, preservation, and exhibition of historical materials, art objects, scientific displays, etc.  Libraries are excluded.

 

4.3.   Educational Media Services.  Includes expenditures for centralized activities providing audiovisual and other services that aid in transmitting information in support of the institution’s instruction, research, and public service programs.  This category includes expenditures associated with delivering distance education instruction.  Examples are:

 

§         TV and Instructional Electronics

§         AV Material Center

§         Graphic Arts

§         Regional AV Services

§         Distance Learning Centers

 

4.4.   Academic Computing Support.  Includes expenditures for centralized activities that provide computing support to the three primary programs.  Excluded from this category is administrative computing support, which is classified as an institutional support program (6.4.).  Where a central computing facility exists, the institution determines the percentage of total costs attributed to academic support.

 

4.5.   Ancillary Support.  Includes expenditures for activities that provide support services to the three primary programs but that are not classified appropriately in any other subcategories.  Ancillary support activities usually provide a mechanism through which students can gain practical experience.  However, the expenditures of teaching hospitals are excluded.  Examples are:

 

§         Organizational Activities Related to Educational Departments

§         Demonstration School

§         Learning Disabilities Clinic

§         Planetarium

§         Day Care Services

§         Lab School

 

4.6.  Academic Administration.  Includes expenditures for activities specifically designed and implemented to provide administrative and management support to the academic programs.  It includes expenditures of academic deans (including deans of research, deans of graduate schools, and college deans), but does not include expenditures of departmental chairs (which are included in the appropriate primary function categories).  Centralized internship coordinators should be included in this category.  It also includes expenditures for academic advising.  Expenditures associated with the chief academic officer of the institution are not included in this subcategory, but should be classified as institutional support.

 

Note:  Release time for department chair, assistant department chairs, graduate program coordinators, and internship coordinators is now included in the Instruction classification rather than Academic Support (4.6.).

 

Examples are:

 

§         deans

§         continuing education administrators and the like

§         centralized graduate program coordinators

§         centralized internship coordinators

 

4.7.  Course and Curriculum Development.  Includes expenditures for activities established either to improve significantly or add to the institution’s instructional offerings, but only to the extent that such activities are organized formally and/or budgeted separately.

 

4.8.  Academic Personnel Development.  Includes expenditures for activities that provide faculty with opportunities for personal and professional growth and development.  Included in this subcategory are sabbaticals, faculty awards, and organized faculty development programs.  State System faculty professional development awards should be included in this category.

 

5.0.  Student Services

This category includes funds expended for admissions and registrar offices and those activities whose primary purpose is to contribute to students’ emotional and physical well-being and to their intellectual, cultural, and social development outside the context of the formal instruction program.  It includes expenditures for student activities, cultural events, student newspapers, intramural athletics, student organizations, intercollegiate athletics, counseling and career guidance (excluding informal academic counseling by the faculty), student-aid administration, and student health service.  This category includes student services administration, social and cultural development, counseling and career guidance, financial aid administration, student recruitment and admissions, student records, and student health services.

 

5.1.   Student Services Administration.  Includes expenditures for organized administrative activities that provide assistance and support (excluding academic support) to the needs and interests of students.  This subcategory includes only administrative activities that support more than one subcategory of student activities and/or that provide central administrative services related to various student service activities.  This subcategory includes the administration of services provided for particular types of students (e.g., minority students, veterans, and students with disabilities).  Excluded from this subcategory are activities of the institution’s chief administrative officer for student affairs, whose activities are institution-wide and, therefore, should be classified appropriately as institutional support (6.1.).

 

5.2.   Social and Cultural Development.  Includes program-related expenditures for organized activities that provide for students’ social and cultural development outside the formal academic program (i.e., for-credit instruction).  This subcategory includes cultural events, student newspapers, intramural and intercollegiate athletics, and student organizations.  Examples include:

 

§         Commencements and Convocations

§         Minority Affairs Programs

§         Lectures and Concerts

§         Recreation

 

5.3.   Counseling and Career Guidance.  Includes expenditures for formally organized placement, career guidance, and personal counseling services for students.  This subcategory includes vocational testing and counseling services and activities of the placement office.  Examples are:

 

§         Testing and Counseling

§         Employment and Placement

§         Minority Affairs Counseling

 

5.4.  Financial Aid Administration.  Includes expenditures for activities that provide financial aid services and assistance to students.  This subcategory does not include grants to students, which should be classified as scholarships and fellowships.  Expenditures related to financial aid accounting and student loan collection are included in this category.

 

5.5.  Student Recruitment and Admissions.  Includes expenditures for activities related to identifying prospective students, promoting attendance at the institution, and processing applications for admission.

 

5.6.  Student Records.  Includes expenditures for activities to maintain, handle, and update records for currently enrolled students as well as for students who were enrolled previously.

 

5.7.  Student Health Services.  Includes expenditures for student health services.

 

6.0.  Institutional Support

Institutional support includes expendit