Business Commons^™

Evaluating Educational Inputs In Undergraduate Education, Robert C. Dolan, Clarence R. Jung Jr., Robert M. Schmidt

Robins School of Business White Paper Series, 1980-2022

This paper examines the input-output relationship for private undergraduate education. The motivation for such a study stems from a long-standing concern within academe for a better understanding of the relationships between student quality, faculty effort, campus environment, and the end result of an "educated" person. Though precise and objective measures of educational output are difficult to formulate, we would argue that alumni achievement is an important and measurable output. Specifically, we focus on the number of baccalaureate alumni who went on to earn a Ph.D. But even with an acceptable output measure, research assessments of the educational process are not …