The financial data comes from the Canadian Association of University Business Officers (CAUBO). CAUBO was founded in 1937 “to promote the professional and effective management of the administrative, financial and business affairs of higher education institutions.” It is funded by the universities, with senior university administrators forming its board of directors. The Financial Data can be found HERE.
CAUBO performs many roles to support university administrators, including the publication of a comprehensive annual report entitled “Financial Information of Universities and Colleges” (CAUBO Report). This is how the CAUBO website describes the report (underlining added for emphasis):
The Financial Information of Universities and Colleges (FIUC) is an annual publication that is jointly prepared by CAUBO and Statistics Canada. It is a valuable source of information for financial data at Canadian universities and colleges.
The FIUC is the only national source for comparable and consistent financial information for Canadian universities. It provides financial information to facilitate statistical and trend analysis on an aggregate level. It also allows users to study and understand long-term trends in university finance and expenditures, at both the institutional and national levels.
The financial data in the publication is based on an annual return completed and submitted by each member institution.
Financial reports dating back to 1999-2000 are available for download.
CAUBO provides detailed guidelines to assist universities in the task of submitting their financial information, and with the goal of promoting consistency in the submission of data. The latest version of these Guidelines can be seen HERE.
It contains the following statements:
Financial Information of Universities and Colleges is an annual publication prepared by Statistics Canada for the Canadian Association of University Business Officers (CAUBO). CAUBO obtains the financial data for the publication by undertaking an annual survey of its degree granting member institutions. Users have indicated that the publication is a comprehensive reference source for the financial data of universities and colleges in Canada.
By following the Guidelines:
… preparers should be better able to complete the annual return form in a manner that encourages consistency in reported data for each institution over time and, in accordance with the Guidelines, facilitates comparability between institutions.
However, the Guidelines incorporate some statements on limitations, including, inter alia, the following:
While users require financial data that are consistent from one year to the next and comparable between institutions, users must also appreciate that notwithstanding the use of detailed Guidelines to assist preparers, there are limitations in the comparability of the data. The data is most useful when aggregated and used for trend analysis. As users move from aggregated data to data that directly compares institutions, either individually or even between provinces or regions, the comparability of the data has limitations.
Limitations in the comparability of the data can result because of differences in the underlying accounting practices followed by institutions. Even the most stringent of reporting guidelines cannot eliminate differences resulting from different underlying accounting practices. Limitations can also result from other inherent differences. Institutional comparisons are subject to interpretation and clarification because of differences such as size, academic programs, structure, physical environment, management philosophy, and budgetary and accounting procedures. Interregional comparisons must also recognize differences such as various sources of funding, fiscal year-end dates varying from March 31st to June 30th, and variations in provincial policies and provincial funding responsibilities.
Adjustments made to the CAUBO Data to facilitate comparability on this site
Three changes have been made to the CAUBO data to allow as much “like for like” comparability on this site as reasonably possible.
Inflation Adjustment
All financial numbers utilized in the comparisons on this site have been re-stated to latest-year dollars.
The other two adjustments relate to CAUBO line items on which individual universities take differing approaches – Sales of Services & Products, and Internal Sales & Cost Recoveries. The rationale for the adjustments is outlined below.
Sales of Services and Products
The majority of universities report at least most of these incomes in the Ancillary Fund, but some report a portion in the General Operating Fund or the Special Purpose & Trust Fund. The adjustment involves omitting this income from General Operating Income at those schools that have reported it there. This adjustment produces no significant impact. As a result, any measure expressed as a percentage of GO Income will be a be a percentage of GO Income excluding Sales of Services and Products.
Internal Sales and Cost Recoveries
The CAUBO guidelines include a relatively short list of instances in which “differences between institutions (can) result in limitations in the comparability of financial data”. Most of them will not exert any significant impact on the comparability on which this site is based, but this one required a decision to be taken:
Internal sales and cost recoveries – Depending upon particular management information systems and business practices, an institution may report amounts by reducing offsetting expenditures or as internal cost recoveries.
Here’s how the CAUBO guidelines defines Internal Cost Recoveries (Section 8):
(c) Internal cost recoveries – the recovery, allocation, charge-out or transfer of costs between funds or functions. Internal cost recoveries refers specifically to indirect or overhead costs.
… and describe the reporting process:
Internal cost recoveries are also to be reported in such a manner as to avoid double counting of expenditures. The preferred method is direct allocation – that is, by reducing the expenditure types in the fund or function from which the costs are allocated, offset with a corresponding increase in the same expenditure types in the fund or function to which the costs are allocated. This approach provides users with better functional comparisons of individual expenditure line items. Alternatively, where direct allocation is not possible or feasible, the internal cost recoveries can be reported separately under an expenditure line item (a recovery) in the fund or function from and to which the costs are allocated (see Section III.C.3 – line 20).
One of the main purposes of internal cost recoveries is to enable universities to recover the indirect costs of sponsored research (commissioned by external parties) from the Sponsored Research Fund. In the absence of such a recovery, the General Operating Fund would be bearing costs that relate not to General Operating activities but to Sponsored Research; this would deprive General Operating of funds that should be supporting its own core functions, including Instruction.
However, some universities utilize internal cost recoveries to a greater degree than others – and two of the Top 25 do not appear to use them at all. More to the point, some universities (to varying degrees) use them to apportion costs out of the sub-functions within General Operating. The most commonly impacted sub-function is Central Administration, where the cost recoveries have the affect of producing a lower-than-actual total cost. Other GO sub-functions can benefit in this way, including Physical Plant and Computing & Communications.
As this site concentrates primarily on the General Operating Fund, the intent behind these adjustments is to remove any Internal Cost Recoveries that have the net affect of reducing the real cost of an activity and impairing comparison. They are not large numbers, but the utilization of Internal Cost Recoveries varies widely and impairs comparability.
As a result, any measure expressed as a percentage of GO Expenditure will be a be a percentage of GO Expenditure excluding Internal Sales and Cost Recoveries.
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Given all of the foregoing, the financial information published by CAUBO is sufficiently comparable for the purpose of this site. The vast majority of the data appears to be consistent, with the universities reporting numbers that are generally in line with those of their peers and with the national trends. There are very occasional apparent anomalies, in which an individual school returns a number significantly “out of whack” with its peers. These instances are not only infrequent, they also exert negligible impact on group averages because those averages are calculated based on group dollar-totals rather than individual school percentages.
THE ENROLLMENT DATA
Comparability for Financial data has been facilitated by converting the numbers for the comparison years into latest-year dollars. This removes the impact of inflation.
However, a second variable impacts comparability on both a year-to-year and university-to-university basis – enrollment. It is particularly impactful in the General Operating area, where activities such as Instruction and Student Services are directly affected by changing student numbers.
Numerous factors impact on a university’s overall activity level, but the most influential and quantifiable revolves around student numbers. The ideal situation is one in which the comparisons are both inflation-adjusted and enrollment-adjusted.
The enrollment numbers utilized in these analyses come from Universities Canada (“the voice of Canada’s universities”), which publishes them annually in conjunction with Statistics Canada. Universities Canada (UC) has “represented the interests of Canadian universities since 1911.”
UC cites four sources for the enrollment data – the Association of Atlantic Universities, the Council of Ontario Universities, individual institutions, and the Bureau de cooperation interuniversitaire.
Adjustments made to the Enrollment Data to facilitate comparability on this site
UC’s enrollment data is provided for four groups – undergraduate (full-time), undergraduate (part-time), graduate (full-time) and graduate (part-time). Each university has its own way of converting those values into FTE (full-time equivalent) numbers. However, in order to facilitate reasonable comparability, I have taken a standardized approach to this exercise. The enrollment-based analysis on this site (the Per FTE numbers) is based on a value of 1.00 for each full-time student, and 0.33 for each part-time student.
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There will always be push-back when analyses of this kind are conducted. However, it is difficult to question the accuracy and comparability of the data when the numbers come from the universities themselves – submitted in accordance with guidelines established by organizations they created many years ago, and continue to fund. The CAUBO numbers represent the only consolidated source of this kind of information, and therefore the only public data on which to base assessments of university comparability, efficiency and accountability.