A complex web of cross-subsidies underlies the academic program portfolio of higher education institutions. Low-cost liberal arts programs may subsidize expensive lab programs; large programs may help pay for smaller, specialized programs; and programs that attract full-pay students may subsidize other heavily-discounted programs.
Understanding this web of subsidies is critical, but rare. Gray’s Program Economics Platform (PEP), a SaaS application, enables schools to track program economics, including revenue, instructional cost, and margins. PEP enables users to drill down to see financial results by program, course, location, and student segment.
It has helped our clients make better, faster decisions on which programs to Start, Stop, Sustain or Grow. It has also helped colleges improve program profitability, for example, they have identified and rescheduled courses with low enrollment.
“We could have been headed in a different direction without the data Gray provided. Some of the programs we favored were probably not viable,” explains the CMO. “We had access to all of the normal sources of data (BLS and IPEDS) but how do you put it all together in a meaningful way?”