Tuition dollars allocated directly to each school

With additional money coming from the tuition increase for the 2011-12 academic school year, IU is allocating these funds in a manner different from other institutions, IU Chief Financial Officer Neil Theobald said.

“We are the most decentralized budget system of any public university in America,” he said. “All of the money goes out to the schools. There’s no money kept centrally.”

Theobald said at other institutions, the money goes directly to the university and is then divvied up amongst the different programs and schools.

At IU, however, tuition money is distributed between the academic schools.

This depends on “a formula that includes the number of student credit hours they generate and the market share,” or how the credit hours change between the schools, said Larry Singell, dean of IU’s College of Arts and Sciences, in an email.

For example, if a student takes an English course, a portion of his or her tuition money goes toward COAS. The remainder of the tuition is divided equally among the schools that house the student’s classes.

The University then uses “assessments,” or operational taxes, for nonacademic costs. The tax rates for each school vary based upon items such as the size of the faculty and the number of students in each particular school, Theobald said.

The amount then allotted from these taxes for the various nonacademic areas in IU vary as well, Theobald said.

“We have different formulas for the different support units — physical plant, library, dean of students, dean of faculty, provost’s office,” he said.

Each school can then use the money remaining after taxes for its respective field of study.

The COAS, however, faces a different plight in that there are several departments within the school. There are no specific guidelines that require the COAS to provide a certain department with more money and another with less, Singell said.

“The College does not treat each of the units as separate revenue-generating units,” he said. “Instead, it attempts to take advantage of the various and different strengths of the departments in the College to maximize the collective reputation of the College and its ability to deliver a first-class liberal arts
education.”