About Us
Delta Cost Project Data
The Delta Cost Project makes data available in a number of different formats. The database that AIR uses to analyze trends and to produce reports and briefs can be accessed from the National Center for Education Statistics at http://nces.ed.gov/ipeds/deltacostproject/.
In addition, AIR, along with Xcalibur, provides an interactive web-based data system that gives higher education stakeholders easy access to information on finance, performance, and enrollments for individual institutions, groups of institutions, or the nation. This can be accessed at http://www.tcs-online.org/Home.aspx.
Our Mission
The mission of the Delta Cost Project on Postsecondary Education Costs, Productivity, and Accountability is to help improve college affordability by controlling costs and improving productivity. The work is animated by the belief that college costs can be contained without sacrificing access or educational quality through better use of data to inform strategic decision making.
The Delta Cost Project is an independent non-profit organization committed to the creation of analytical tools to:
- Document trends in college spending;
- Understand where and why college costs are increasing;
- Translate technical accounting information into benchmarks for institutional and policy audiences;
- Identify and promote best practices that generate the greatest return on investment for access and success; and
- Promote institutional and policy strategies for improved productivity.
Focus of the work
- Data and Measures
- National data base synthesizing data on trends in revenues and expenditures
- Annual publication about major trends in revenues and expenditures
- Analysis of trends, improvement of measures, improvement of performance
- Issue briefs analyzing cost trends and likely causes of cost increases
- ‘Best practices’ for institutional cost effectiveness, targeted to address major cost drivers
- Analysis of state policy/regulatory barriers to improved cost measurement
- Evaluation of return on investment/cost effectiveness of institutional innovations designed to improve student success
- Communication, institutional support, and policy advocacy
- Translation of national research data base into web-based application to invite easy institutional and policy access to cost information
- Development of benchmarks for monitoring costs, marketed to policy makers and institutional leaders including governing boards
- Promotion of effective policies to encourage cost containment, aimed at public policy makers as well as institutional officials
- Technical assistance to institutions and policy officials