Wednesday, October 2, 2002

Cuts in College Computing Budgets Are Wider and Deeper, Survey Finds By VINCENT KIERNAN The economic downturn and state-budget cuts have led to further slashes in computing budgets for both public and private colleges, an annual survey has found. More colleges than last year reported cuts in their computing budgets, and the cuts are deeper, according to the survey, which was conducted by the Campus Computing Project. Details of the findings are scheduled to be released today in Atlanta, at the annual conference of Educause, the academic-computing consortium. One-third of the 632 two- and four-year institutions that replied to the survey said their budgets for academic computing had fallen for the current academic year. Last year, 18 percent of the institutions reported such a decline. Moreover, this year's cuts are more severe. Fifteen percent of the institutions said their academic-computing budgets had dropped by 5 percent or more. Last year, only 8 percent of the institutions said their academic-computing budgets had dropped so sharply. The pattern is the same in budgets for administrative computing. This year, 31 percent of the responding institutions reported declines in that area, compared with 18 percent last year and 12 percent the year before. Twelve percent of the institutions reported cuts of 5 percent or more this year. Last year, only 7 percent of institutions saw such steep decreases. Kenneth C. Green, director of the Campus Computing Project, did not know whether the same colleges had suffered cuts in succeeding years, but said he suspects that some of the institutions that reported cuts this year also suffered cuts in the recent past. Mr. Green is a visiting scholar in education studies at Claremont Graduate University. "This should come as no surprise to anyone," he said of the budget cuts, noting that in the mid- and late 1990s many institutions sharply increased their spending on information technology. However, Mr. Green said, the survey's findings suggest that college officials are attempting to be selective in applying budget cuts. For example, many institutions appear to be protecting funds for development of online systems for administration and electronic commerce. Only 9 percent of the respondents said they had cut their spending in that area this year, while 34 percent said they had increased expenditures. One reason, Mr. Green said, may be the size and importance of such projects. "Once you start moving on these things, they're hard to stop." The emphasis on electronic commerce has led colleges to improve the capabilities of their systems, he added. For example, more colleges now are able to accept credit-card payments on their Web sites: 41 percent this year, up from 28 percent last year. Still, he said, colleges trail the private sector in offering electronic services and in packaging the information on their Web sites in formats that are easy to use. What college administrators should be asking their Web-site managers, he said, is: "Why doesn't this thing work as well as Amazon?" In other findings, the survey documented colleges' adoption of online portals. Twenty-one percent of the respondents reported having such a portal, and 20 percent said theirs are under development. The survey also found that wireless-network technology continues to spread through academe. Sixty-eight percent of the colleges reported having some sort of wireless network -- not necessarily covering the entire campus -- and 13 percent said they would start operating such a network this year. Last year, only 51 percent said they had wireless networks. The survey was conducted from mid-June through mid-September. The questions were sent to 1,334 two- and four-year institutions. Colleges with fewer than 500 students and for-profit institutions were not surveyed, Mr. Green said. The Campus Computing Project receives funds from Educause and more than three dozen companies that make computer hardware or software or offer online services to academe. Background articles from The Chronicle: 10 Ways Colleges Can Cut IT Costs (10/4/2002) In States Hurt by the Recession, Technology Is on the Chopping Block (7/19/2002) A Fifth of Colleges Cut Information-Technology Budgets This Year, Survey Finds (11/9/2001) State Spending on Higher Education Grows by Smallest Rate in 5 Years (1/18/2002) Easy-to-print version E-mail this article

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