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Authority staff brief TEA on instructional cost model and state aid calculations
Summary
KBOR staff provided a detailed explanation of the postsecondary instructional cost model, how course costs are calculated, and how state aid for academic year allocations was determined using a three-year rolling average.
Elaine, a board office staff member, gave the Kansas Postsecondary Technical Education Authority an in-depth briefing on Jan. 30 explaining how the state’s instructional cost model translates course-level expenses into state aid allocations.
Elaine said the formula — created under a prior statutory change (referenced in the meeting as “143”) — isolates costs only for “academic credit” coursework that leads to credentials and does not cover noncredit activities such as residence halls, student unions or athletics. She described the three principal cost elements captured for non‑tiered courses: instructor cost, instructional support and institutional support; tiered technical courses add an “extraordinary costs” element for consumables and expensive equipment.
Elaine explained that instructor rates use a three‑year average drawn primarily from the National Higher Education Benchmarking Institute data. Instructional support and institutional support rates come from colleges’ audited financials and are reflected in the agency’s published data books. She gave examples of extraordinary costs — x‑ray machines, welding booths, fuel for CDL training and consumables — and said those items are grouped into tiered rates ranging up to $139 per credit hour, adjusted annually.
On the revenue side, Elaine described the typical financing split for community college in‑district students as one‑third student tuition, one‑third local property tax and one‑third state aid; for out‑of‑district and technical college credit hours the model assumes two‑thirds state and one‑third student tuition. She said the cost model now uses a three‑year rolling average of detailed student‑level course enrollments to compute each college’s state aid. For the academic year data underlying the current calculations, the system produced $171.7 million in calculated non‑tiered instructional costs across 737,000 credit hours.
Elaine also reviewed recent legislative context: the legislature has moved the agency toward full funding of the model over three years, and the governor and House appropriations included funds to continue that course. She noted Senate Bill 291 required state agencies to move to .gov domains.
Ending: The presentation closed with questions from members about data sources and comparability between institutions; staff said they would continue to publish the data books and key‑stats portals and work with colleges on methodology details.
