Title: Financial aid management: an optimisation approach

Authors: Paul K. Sugrue, Anuj Mehrotra, Paul M. Orehovec

Addresses: School of Business Administration, University of Miami, Coral Gables, FL 33124, USA. ' Department of Management Science, School of Business Administration, University of Miami, Coral Gables, FL 33124-8237, USA. ' Enrolment Management, Continuing and International Education, 252 Ashe Building, University of Miami, Coral Gables, FL 33124, USA

Abstract: Higher education administrators regularly make decisions regarding the allocation of multi-million institutional dollars in attracting superior students, while trying to maximise certain factors such as net revenue, quality and enrolment. Often these decisions are made based on experience or some times in an ad hoc manner. The resulting enrolment management strategies can be far from optimal. We model this decision-making problem via a linear programming problem that can be easily solved to optimality while taking multiple factors into account. Through very representative data, our analysis shows how the optimal allocation of financial aid awarded to the entering class can significantly improve enrolment management. It also shows how an administrator can dynamically assess the various strategies as more information becomes available during the enrolment process. Such a strategy has been successfully implemented with major improvements at the University of Miami.

Keywords: enrolment management; financial aid; optimisation; higher education; university administration; decision making; linear programming; operational research; student enrolment; net revenue; quality.

DOI: 10.1504/IJOR.2006.009301

International Journal of Operational Research, 2006 Vol.1 No.3, pp.267 - 282

Published online: 15 Mar 2006 *

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