More fun with numbers - USM Forum -- Message Board

Date: Nov 1, 2005

More fun with numbers

Date: Nov 1, 2005

Book Cooker wrote:

WDAM news last night had a story on colleges, with lower post-hurricane enrollments, scrambling for state and federal money. In a sound bite Thames remarked that "our enrollment is one-half of what we thought it would be." ...

Cooker--

I heard that spot, too. The scary thing was that SFT followed his comment about enrollment being down by 50% with a comment about 75% of the budget being faculty salaries.

It don't take a seer to see where that line leads.

Date: Nov 2, 2005

The 75% figure surprised me as well. Fleming used to say that 88-91% of the money was tied up in salaries. What's changed? Maybe it's that USM now has many fewer faculty and staff and many more brick-paved sidewalks and fancy lights.

Date: Nov 2, 2005

Book Cooker wrote:
The 75% figure surprised me as well. Fleming used to say that 88-91% of the money was tied up in salaries. What's changed? Maybe it's that USM now has many fewer faculty and staff and many more brick-paved sidewalks and fancy lights.

Could it be that Fleming included staff & administrative salaries in his figure? Or could it be that SFT just doesn't bother keeping "trivial" little figures in his mind & just ballparks everything. I mean, 50% is closer to 65% than to 20%...