Student and Fee Income Planning – Calculations

Also see Student and Fee Income Glossary

Calculating FTEs and Fee Income

Driver-based planning is a widely recommended approach to planning whereby a model is created with one or more drivers that greatly affect ('drive') the financial outcome. The drivers should be ones familiar to non-finance personnel. In UCD we use driver-based Student FTE and Fee Income planning. Registrations are the driver and various assumptions are applied in the model. We describe the assumptions as Factors (represented as green arrows in diagrams below).

• Major Registrations are the driver, and changing the volume of Major Registrations results in changes in calculated FTEs and Fee Income.
• Assumptions (Factors) regarding FTEs and Fee Income determine how these will be impacted by the planned changes to the driver.
• Average FTE per Major Registration will determine the number of FTEs calculated.
• Average Fee Rate per FTE will determine the gross fee income calculated.
• Fee Rate Escalation will apply a % increase to the Fee Income if specified for that Level, and if the School’s Calculation Type is set to use it
• % FTE Attributed to My School will split the FTEs and Fee Income by School.

Majors normally have different EU and NonEU fee rates, and typically the distribution of FTEs varies for each stage on a Major so the various Factors are used at the level of Stage and EU/NonEU.

FTEs and Fee Income are calculated in the plan for My Majors and Shared Majors. For other Majors, they are simply copied from the current Census into the Base Plan and are not planned at the detailed Major / Stage level. If changes are required, they should be treated as Adjustments by level.

Calculating Intake

Intake does not drive or affect the other items in the plan. It is an output intended to communicate planned registrations for entering students for levels other than undergraduate, and to act as a cross-check of consistency with the Deans’ Plans for the undergraduate level.

Intake applies at Stage 1/Year 1.

For any Major and Stage, the Intake may be entered or calculated. If it is calculated, the calculation is

• Intake = Major Registrations * Intake Factor.

Calculating Progression

For some Majors it may be appropriate to model the registrations in one stage based on the registrations in the preceding stage in the prior year. On PBCS this is referred to as Progression and may be calculated automatically. The formula is:

• Major Registrations for Stage N+1 in Year Y+1 = (Major Registrations for Stage N in Year Y) * Progression Factor.