The economics of the University of the Air of Japan revisited
In 1988 UAJ completed the first phase of its initial plan, thus enabling an assessment of the cost-effectiveness of UAJ and a forecast of its future based on available data. The cost per student at UAJ is 2/5, 1/2, and 3/4 of that at national, public, and day programs of private universities, and 1.1 times and 6.7 times of that at evening and correspondence programs of private universities repectively. The projected cost per graduate is slightly lower than that at national universities and 1.1, 1.9 and 2.3 times of that at public, correspondence and day, and evening programs of private universities respectively. The cost per credit is 1.3, 1.5, 2.2, 2.4 and 4.6 times of national and public universities, day, evening, and correspondence programs of private universities respectively.The simulations indicate that the cost per credit can be decreased by expanding the operation of UAJ to a nationwide scale, employing a surface circuit or satellite system; however, it is necessary that the number of students be doubled in order to make the cost per credit equivalent to that at public universities. However, even when the number of students is four times, the cost per credit is not equivalent to that at day programs of private universities regardless of what method is used. Although the current cost per credit is higher than that of conventional universities, changes in cummunication technology and student characteristics could alter the cost-effectiveness of UAJ.
The economics of the University of the Air of Japan
According to the present plan, the enrollment of the University of the Air of Japan will be approximately 30,000 students when it reaches its steady state. Its current expenditure is estimated to be Yen4.1 billion at 1979 prices; adding the annual cost of facilities and equipment and the service that the National Center for Development of Broadcast Education performs for the university, the total amounts to Yen 5.0–7.1 billion. Adding this to the students' study expenses, Yen 6.7–8.7 billion will be required to operate the university. About 50–60% of the cost will be borne by the national treasury. The current expenditure of the university is estimated to be Yen 171,000–237,000 per equivalent undergraduate.As compared with the current expenditure in the humanities and social sciences programs of conventional universities, the academic structures of which are similar to that of the University of the Air of Japan, the current expenditure per equivalent undergraduate is estimated to be 1/4, 1/3, and 2/3 of that at national universities, public universities and day programs of private universities, respectively, and equal to that of evening programs of private universities.From the viewpoint of cost per graduate, it is equal to that of evening programs of private universities, their day programs, public universities, and national universities, when the graduation rate is 60%, 50%, 25%, and 20%, respectively.
Television and Efficiency in Higher Education
ITV has long been heralded as providing the potential for substantial improvements in the quality, or reductions in the cost, of higher education. Yet there exist no analytical models that would allow a quantitative expression of the extent to which ITV could, in fact, improve educational efficiency. Our purpose in this paper has been to develop such a model. The model is developed in terms of efficiency improvement in a 2 year professional school; it generalizes readily, however, to any institution of higher learning that has a substantial number of multi-section courses. In addition to development of a theoretical model we experimentally tested our proposed approach in an introductory microeconomics course at the Stanford University Graduate School of Business. Our results reconfirmed the well established result that substituting ITV for live instruction has insignificant impact on student learning, and our detailed analysis of student attitudes (expressed in part as willingness to pay) gives confidence that ITV (combined with small group discussion) can be an acceptable substitute for lecture instruction in higher education. Given this high degree of substitutibility, application of our quantitative model indicates substantial efficiency improvements to be possible in higher education through relatively limited use of ITV.