Complying with federal regulations costs Vanderbilt University $146 million a year, 11% of its overall expenses, the university estimates [Vanderbilt press release via Prof. Bainbridge]
Complying with federal regulations costs Vanderbilt University $146 million a year, 11% of its overall expenses, the university estimates [Vanderbilt press release via Prof. Bainbridge]
2 Comments
How much do they receive in benefits? 146 million dollars sounds like alot, but if they receive 100 billion dollars of federal government money, it may not be.
Also, a good majority of the compliance seems to be related to the university’s research grants. Certainly, it may be a lot. But, perhaps, the requirements are something that Vanderbilt would do even if there were no requirements.
Finally, if Vanderbilt does not like it, they don’t have to accept government funds. Basicallyl, the government is paying for the compliance by giving Vanderbilt research grants.
I am not convinced that this is a bad thing. It might or might not be. I am just not convinced either way.
If it’s 11% of its expenses, then assuming a balanced budget, they can’t possibly be getting more than 9 times the amount even if federal aid was 99% of their revenue – and I’m pretty sure it’s not. I didn’t see the linked article mention exactly how much they DO get.
Some of the compliance costs ($14 million) are just things any business has to do, like finance regulations and making sure your employees are legal to work in the country, so not accepting federal funding would not help with those. Another $14 million is stuff like accreditation that any university in the country would have to do, so not accepting funding would not help there either.
I found a budget here but I think that includes the medical center which is about 2/3 the budget, and the article excluded that, so it becomes hard to compare numbers directly. But $359 million is listed as “government grants and contracts” under “unrestricted operating revenue”, and $493 million was listed as “government awards” under “sponsored research and project awards”. That would put it at $852 million if you assume that those are mutually exclusive, but almost certainly some of that is going to the health care side, because $493 million was greater than the entire research expense line, which was $434 million.
11% for compliance is too high, regardless, though.