This study describes the status of zero-based budgeting in institutions of higher education in the United States. Purposes were to determine (a) knowledgeability of the chief financial officers about concept and techniques of ZBB, (b) Institutions' use of ZBB and other widely-used budgeting techniques such as Incremental, Formula, Planning, Programming and Line-item budgeting system, and (c) the chief financial officer's perceptions of ZBB. A questionnaire constructed from literature was mailed to two hundred randomly-selected institutions of higher education in the forty-eight contiguous states and authorized to offer at least a one-year program of college level studies toward a degree. The 136 returned useable responses were tabulated according to institution type, size, and amount of budget.