“New” strategies for resource allocation are, like their predecessors, based on certain root assumptions about decision making and on allocation models that flow from these assumptions.
Drawing from published case studies of U.S. institutions and from case studies conducted in the U.K., the author assesses the causes and characteristics of decline among institutions of higher education and the various types of institutional planning responses. Planning under conditions of instability and decline is held to be significantly different from planning under conditions of growth in that the politics of planning are more intensive and highly defensive. Changes in the standards for organizational consensus in planning under decline are also discussed. The problems and advantages inherent in developing "strategic contingency plans" as opposed to developing strategic planning policies are noted.The author concludes with a summarization of the contrasting planning styles characteristic of U.S. institutions, U.K. polytechnics and U.K. universities, noting that the model and success of recent University Grants Committee selective cuts among many institutions is more likely to be transferred to the polytechnic sector than across the Atlantic to U.S. institutions.Institutions of higher education are increasingly confronted with unstable economic conditions, unsettling government policies, and/or demographic trends which have resulted in or portend reduced funding levels and new programmatic constraints. Institutions which have experienced periods of instability and contraction offer interesting and important case studies as to the nature of planning during periods of uncertainty and contraction. This article, taken from a larger study of institutional change processes (Davies and Morgan, 1981), focuses on planning responses in British and American institutions of higher education.Planning in higher education has long been associated with issues of growth, e.g., the physical master planning necessary to accommodate expanding enrollments, research programs, and other service and auxiliary activities.
Higher education's historic and successful search for every expanding revenues and missions may be reaching its limits. If true, the agenda for the future will focus much more on the difficult and uncomfortable expenditure side of the financing equation.
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