4 Deans Share the Best Advice They Have Received About Budgets

Higher education faces a host of financial challenges. Public investment in colleges and universities is shaky. Tuition revenue is softening. And the costs of labor and facilities continue to rise. Such problems helped trigger the decision by Moody’s Investors Service to downgrade its outlook for higher education from stable to negative two years ago.

Deans are often in the hot seat when it comes to those challenges. They must expand academic programs while keeping spending low. They must advocate for faculty budget requests while constantly explaining the fiscal realities to professors. They must be entrepreneurial in how they increase revenue and trim overhead while preserving the core mission of their college or division.

To explore how deans have managed those issues, The Chronicle organized a panel of experts — Anne McPhatter, dean of the School of Social Work at Morgan State University; Gregory F. Ball, dean of the College of Behavioral and Social Sciences at the University of Maryland at College Park; Catherine M. Wehlburg, dean of the School of Sciences, Mathematics, and Education at Marymount University; and Peter Starr, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at American University — at our office, in Washington, D.C.

The talk covered the financial pressures their colleges face, the lingering impacts of the Great Recession, how they set priorities given current constraints, tips for finding efficiencies, and views on emerging budget models.

To download a report on the discussion, click here. Click on the video link to learn what each of them considers to be the best advice they were ever given about budgets.

Ian Wilhelm edits coverage of international issues and other topics. Follow him on Twitter @ianwilhelm, or email him at ian.wilhelm@chronicle.com.