Colleges That Spend the Most Per Student on Student Services

Two public and 46 private nonprofit colleges spent more than $10,000 per full-time-equivalent student on student services in 2017-18. A portion of student-services spending pays for activities designed to support students’ emotional and physical well-being and to encourage their intellectual, cultural, and social development outside the classroom. Other student-services spending is devoted to admissions, financial-aid administration, and career guidance. The two-year public college with the highest student-services spending per FTE student was Stella and Charles Guttman Community College, a campus of the City University of New York that opened in 2012 and that has a relatively high graduation rate in comparison with other two-year colleges. It spent more than $7,700 per FTE student, compared with an average of well under $2,000 for that sector.

* Multiple campuses, or a campus or campuses and a system or district office, reported spending together.

† State-related institution that is not owned by the state but receives some state support.

Note: Data cover four- and two-year public insitutions and four-year private nonprofit institutions that participate in Title IV federal student-aid programs and that had at least 500 full-time-equivalent students enrolled in the 2017-18 academic year. Spending is for the 2017-18 fiscal year. “Student services” include admissions, financial-aid administration, career guidance, and student activities. Colleges varied in whether they counted intercollegiate athletic expenses, if any; student-health services; and student-services-related information-technology services as student-services spending. Some colleges with low spending rates may have folded student-services spending into other categories like academic support. Student-services spending by college system administrations or district offices was included only if campuses did not report separate spending figures. Full-time-equivalent, or FTE, enrollment is the sum of FTE undergraduate, graduate, and first-professional enrollment reported by institutions, and is calculated based on the number of credit or contact hours over 12 months. Figures are rounded, but institutions were ranked before rounding. Questions or comments on the Chronicle List should be sent to Ruth Hammond or the data team.

Source: Chronicle analysis of U.S. Department of Education data