Productivity and "Output Creep"

Big Question #4

Output Creep and Productivity
Lloyd Smith

            Another plague on higher education productivity is “output creep”. Productivity as defined by the Consortium for Policy Research in Education (CPRE) is “the ratio of output to input in an organization” (http://www.cpre.org/images/stories/cpre_pdfs/fb01.pdf). Productivity issues in higher education are lagging. One of these issues affecting productivity is “output creep”, which describes the process of the slow change in the input to output mix with faculty (http://www.cpre.org/images/stories/cpre_pdfs/fb01.pdf). Post-WWII, higher education and faculty have steered farther away from teaching (output) and increased their energies on research (input). In a research article in Factors that influence costs in higher education by Paul Brickman “output creep” is one of the leading causes in increasing costs in higher education (1992). These costs are being pushing up the sticker price of college tuition of college students (Archibald and Feldman, 2011).

             How can this costs disease factor of “output creep” be alleviated? One proposal is to stitch the rupturing wound in higher education costs and better manage productivity and efficiency in administration costs and faculty product mix (Massey and Zemsky, 1997). Administration delegates teaching load requirements to the subject specific departments, which in turn value research and publication of faculty for tenure or to keep tenure lessening their ability to teach more classes (Massey and Zemsky, 1997). The cost is suffered by the student by paying a higher price for their education, as well as the state’s funding allocations in covering institutional costs. “Output creep” is costs disease in one of the most overt means.

References:

CPRE information and article retrieved from: http://www.cpre.org/images/stories/cpre_pdfs/fb01.pdf

Paul T. Brinkman, (1992). Factors that influence costs in higher education. New Directions for Institutional Research, Volume 1992, Issue 75, pages 23–34. Retrieved from:

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ir.37019927504

Massey, William and Zemsky, Robert, (1997). A utility model for teaching load decisions in academic departments. Economics of Education Review, vol. 16 (4), pgs. 349-355. Retrieved from: http://nersp.nerdc.ufl.edu/~lombardi/edudocs/masseyZemsky.pdf