Mission and Money

Mission and Money goes beyond the common focus on elite universities and examines the entire higher education industry including the rapidly growing for-profit schools. The sector includes research universities four-year colleges two-year schools and non-degree-granting career academies. Many institutions pursue mission-related activities that are often unprofitable and engage in profitable revenue raising activities to finance them. This book contains a good deal of original research on schools revenue sources from tuition donations research patents endowments and other activities. It considers lobbying distance education and the world market as well as advertising branding and reputation. The pursuit of revenue while essential to achieve the mission of higher learning is sometimes in conflict with that mission itself. The tension between mission and money is also highlighted in the chapter on the profitability of intercollegiate athletics. The concluding chapter investigates implications of the analysis for public policy.