The Biggest Higher Ed Budgeting Blunders And How To Solve Them
Whether you’re a department chair at a small college or a major research university, we know that preparing each semester’s budget is one of the most stressful and thankless parts of your job. There are so many things to consider: building overhead, office supplies, and personnel are the biggies, and you know better than anyone all the little bits and pieces unique to your specialty. Most of the time, colleges rely on departmental budgets and estimates to come in before making their overarching operating budget, so there’s also the pressure of a deadline to deal with.
The Biggest Piece of the Pie
Without a system in place to measure course enrolment accurately and in real-time, it can be impossible to make the right hires in time. Incomplete predictions about enrolment trends and staff availability can lead to hasty hiring decisions that puts an imperfect candidate in front of students. This can have intangible costs if the overall course quality suffers, and very real consequences for your department’s reputation and future financial stability. Having to guess about enrolment also means that otherwise conscientious chairs may make budgeting errors that affect the university as a whole, and their own departments specifically.
The Way Forward
We can already hear you asking, “So what’s the solution?” How about a single program that helps you track course enrolment, a list of all available instructors, and student feedback? Fiscot's exclusive Chair’s Dashboard manages this data in real time, allowing you to track dynamic changes as they occur, so you have the most up-to-date information when finalizing your budget. Best of all, we even offer a module that tracks course revenues and instructor costs automatically, so you can keep an eye on your department’s financial health with ease.
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