Social and individual spending on higher education has outpaced social and individual economic growth, resulting in nonprofit institutions of higher education (NIHEs) growing increasingly dependent upon unsustainable governmental subsidies and tuition increases. The purpose of this study was to examine the interactions among components of the nonprofit university system, existing revenue generation methods, and sustainability of revenue generation, thereby generating a new sustainable revenue theory for nonprofit universities within the United States. This qualitative grounded theory study used a multiphase design incorporating data from the literature review, historical documents, and phone interviews from a theoretical sampling of 10 NIHEs. Participants were 20 faculty, 40 students, 40 administrative staff, and 20 members of the business community. Analysis included open, focused, axial, and theoretical coding. The study's findings theorize that a sustainable revenue generation system must continually include, and respond to, the multidirectional interactions of all system components as they change over time, including businesses. The result of the multidirectional connectivity between all of the system components was increased revenue for NIHEs and reduced student and government-funded tuition. Additionally, an organizational culture that is incongruent with change has been identified in NIHEs and must be mitigated. The findings of this study could positively affect NIHEs by providing a sustainable and adaptable system for improving revenue generation while increasing affordability and accessibility for students of these institutions, which, in turn, may produce positive social change.

Continuing dental education is a necessity for the dental professional. In dentistry, a profession described as a life-long learning endeavor, dental professionals are challenged with keeping up-to-date with the ever-changing scientific and technological advances of their profession. Continuing dental education plays an important role in providing dental practitioners with the opportunity to keep abreast of the latest advances in the dental industry. University-based continuing dental education programs, that provide the professional development needed by dental professionals to maintain and upgrade their skills and knowledge-base, have grown from their early origins as a primary service to dental school alumni members, to playing a pivotal role in regulating and professionalizing the dental industry as well as contributing to the financial well-being of their dental schools and universities. As educational funding continues to shrink while the cost of educating competent dental practitioners continues to rise, continuing dental education has developed revenue generating opportunities for their dental schools. This study was designed to analyze the current financial and revenue generating practices of continuing dental education units within both public and private dental schools, with a goal of providing a conceptual framework to develop a standardized financial model for determining the profitability of programs. Employing a cross-sectional survey method approach, this study obtained quantitative and qualitative data through the use of an electronic survey that was sent to both private and public dental school members of the Association for Continuing Dental Education (ACDE). The results of the findings of this study summarized data into several categories and compared the data between public versus private dental schools including the CDE unit's size, programs, revenue generation, program and unit expenses, corporate funding, net income, institutional overhead fees, gifts-in-kind, surplus revenue, and other factors considered when calculating profitability of CDE programs. These findings helped to create a framework for the development of a financial model, the Comprehensive Program Budget that may be used to more accurately project program profitability, thereby insuring that CDE units are self-sufficient and positive contributors to the financial well-being of their institutions.