Concepts of cost and cost analysis for higher education

Costing can be a useful planning and management tool. It can provide information relevant to assessing operational efficiency, planning an investment strategy, evaluating comparative performance, or justifying funding requests and prices charged for services (Balderston, 1972), Given the utility of cost data, it is not surprising that virtually every institutional researcher deals with such data at least occasionally. Some may have responsibilities for ongoing, periodic cost analyses. Others may have to contend with ad hoc requests for such analyses. In either case, there is reason to better understand notions of cost and costing. "Cost" Is one of those generic terms familiar to nearly everyone, but it has technical nuances that can escape even those reasonably well acquainted with the field. Those nuances, moreover, are complicated by the involvement of several disciplines and professions.