Class Definitions
Instruction
This category should include expenditures for all activities that are part of an institution's instruction program, with the exception of expenditures for remedial and tutorial instruction, which should be categorized as Student Services. Expenditures for credit and noncredit courses, for academic, occupational, and vocational instruction, and for regular, special, and extension sessions should be included.
Expenditures for departmental research and public service that are not separately budgeted should be included in this classification. This category excludes expenditures for academic administration when the primary assignment is administration—for example, academic deans. However, expenditures for department chairmen, in which instruction is still an important role of the administrator, are included in this category.
Research
This category should include all expenditures for activities specifically organized to produce research outcomes, whether commissioned by an agency external to the institution or separately budgeted by an organizational unit within the institution. Subject to these conditions, it includes expenditures for individual and/or project research as well as those of institutes and research centers. This category does not include all sponsored programs (training grants are an example) nor is it necessarily limited to sponsored research, since internally supported research programs, if separately budgeted, might be included in this category under the circumstances described above. Expenditures for departmental research that are separately budgeted specifically for research are included in this category.
Public Service
This category should include funds expended for activities that are established primarily to provide noninstructional services beneficial to individuals and groups external to the institution. These activities include community service programs (excluding instructional activities) and cooperative extension services. Included in this category are conferences, institutes, general advisory services, reference bureaus, radio and television, consulting, and similar noninstructional services to particular sectors of the community.
Academic Support
This category should include funds expended primarily to provide support services for the institution's primary missions—instruction, research, and public service. It includes (1) the retention, preservation, and display of educational materials—for example, libraries, museums, and galleries; (2) the provision of services that directly assist the academic functions of the institution, such as demonstration schools associated with a department, school, or college of education; (3) media, such as audiovisual services and technology such as computing support; (4) academic administration (including academic deans but not department chairmen) and personnel development providing administrative support and management direction to the three primary missions; and (5) separately budgeted support for course and curriculum development. For institutions that currently charge certain of the expenditures—for example, computing support—directly to the various operating units of the institution, such expenditures are not reflected in this category.
Student Services
This category should include funds expended for offices of admissions and registrar and those activities whose primary purpose is to contribute to the student's emotional and physical well-being and to his intellectual, cultural, and social development outside the context of the formal instruction program. It includes expenditures for student activities, cultural events, student newspapers, intramural athletics, student organizations, intercollegiate athletics (if the program is operated as an integral part of the department of physical education and not as an essentially self-supporting activity), supplemental educational services to provide matriculated students with supplemental instruction outside of the normal academic program (remedial instruction is an example), counseling and career guidance (excluding informal academic counseling by the faculty), student aid administration, and student health service (if not operated as an essentially self-supporting activity).
Institutional Support
This category should include expenditures for: (1) central executive-level activities concerned with management and long-range planning of the entire institution, such as the governing board, planning and programming, and legal services; (2) fiscal operations, including the investment office; (3) administrative data processing; (4) space management; (5) employee personnel and records; (6) logistical activities that provide procurement, storerooms, safety, security, printing, and transportation services to the institution; (7) support services to faculty and staff that are not operated as auxiliary enterprises; and (8) activities concerned with community and alumni relations, including development and fund raising.
Operation and Maintenance of Plant
This category should include all expenditures of current operating funds for the operation and maintenance of physical plant, in all cases net of amounts charged to auxiliary enterprises, hospitals, and independent operations. It does not include expenditures made from the institutional plant fund accounts. It includes all expenditures for operations established to provide services and maintenance related to grounds and facilities. Also included are utilities, fire protection, property insurance, and similar items.
Scholarships and Fellowships
This category should include expenditures for scholarships and fellowships in the form of outright grants to students selected by the institution and financed from current funds, restricted or unrestricted. It also should include trainee stipends, prizes, and awards, except trainee stipends awarded to individuals who are not enrolled in formal course work, which should be charged to instruction, research, or public service as appropriate. If the institution is given custody of the funds, but is not allowed to select the recipient of the grant—for example, the federal Basic Educational Opportunity Grants program or ROTC scholarships—the funds should be reported in the Agency Funds group rather than in the Current Funds group. The recipient of an outright grant is not required to perform service to the institution as consideration for the grant, nor is he expected to repay the amount of the grant to the funding source. When services are required in exchange for financial assistance, as in the federal College Work-Study Program, the charges should be classified as expenditures of the department or organizational unit to which the service is rendered. Aid to students in the form of tuition or fee remissions also should be included in this category. However, remissions of tuition or fees granted because of faculty or staff status, or family relationship of students to faculty or staff, should be recorded as staff benefit expenditures in the appropriate functional expenditure category.
Auxiliary Enterprise
Auxiliary Enterprise exist to furnish goods or services to students, faculty, or staff, and that charges a fee directly related to, although not necessarily equal to, the cost of the goods or services. The distinguishing characteristic of auxiliary enterprises is that they are managed as essentially self-supporting activities. Examples are residence halls, food services, intercollegiate athletics, (only if essentially self-supporting), college stores, faculty clubs, faculty and staff parking, and faculty housing. Student health services, when operated as an auxiliary enterprise, also should be included. The general public may be served incidentally by auxiliary enterprises. Hospitals, although may serve students, faculty, or staff, are separately classified because of their relative financial significance.
This category includes all expenditures and transfers relating to the operation of auxiliary enterprises, including expenditures for operation and maintenance of plant and for institutional support; also included are other direct and indirect costs, whether charged directly as expenditures or allocated as a proportionate share of costs of other departments or units.
Fundraising includes expenses incurred to induce donors to contribute, such as:
- Planning fundraising campaigns
- Managing the fundraising process
- Actual public solicitation costs (media, mail, etc...)
- Applying for foundation and government grants
- Recruiting
- Training
- Supervising fundraising volunteers
- Staff time required to participate in federated fundraising campaigns
- Other costs intended to advance the solicitation effort
- "Special Event" invitations, planning and publicity
Agency funds are held by an institution as custodian or fiscal agent for others such as student organizations, individual students, or faculty members.
Membership Development includes expenses for activities to maintain relations with the University's alumni.
Last Updated: 06/25/2021