This study was undertaken to determine whether economy of scale and cost assumptions were used implicitly in the state-level allocation formula of appropriated funds to 28 community colleges in Florida. A formula reflects assumptions about the functions of organizations and organizational commitments. Analysis of the assumptions underlying a state-level funding formula is essential. The purposes of the study were: to determine whether there were significantly different unit costs among instructional programs in Florida's public community colleges; to determine if economies of scale were evident in unit expenditures for instructional and support programs; and to develop groupings of community colleges with similar costs. / This study was carried out in three phases with data collected from the Management Information System of the Florida Department of Education's Division of Community colleges. A relational cost analysis strategy employing multivariate statistics was followed. / The results of the first phase of the study led to the conclusions that: significant variation can be found between instructional discipline costs; the assumption of economies of scale must be rejected; and an inflation effect can be found in some aggregate cases but not in each discipline. / The conclusion of the second phase of the study was that the variation in unit cost between institutions cannot be traced in some strong linear way either to such factors as size of institution, inflation, or to other unique institutional attributes identified in the study. / In the third phase of the study, groupings of community colleges with similar unit costs for the instructional program, support program and total per unit expenditures were developed. / The overall conclusion of the study was that the state's formula funding system did not accurately reflect the character of costs in Florida's 28 public community colleges; however, the colleges can be grouped by like cost configurations. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 42-06, Section: A, page: 2397. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1981.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:fsu.edu/oai:fsu.digital.flvc.org:fsu_74470 |
| Contributors | HACKETT, EARLE RAYMOND., Florida State University |
| Source Sets | Florida State University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text |
| Format | 174 p. |
| Rights | On campus use only. |
| Relation | Dissertation Abstracts International |
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