Associate Director for Advanced Analytics Ohio University Athens, Ohio, United States
Session Abstract: Knowing which academic programs are financially sustainable has always been harder than it should be. Ohio University's Institutional Effectiveness and Analytics team set out to change that — building an activity margin equation that calculates net revenue per course section using data from their Student Information System (SIS). The result: a managerial accounting framework assembled nightly from HR, payroll, and general ledger data and validated across the registrar, bursar, financial aid, and payroll offices.
What makes this approach actionable is its depth. Leaders can explore activity margins university-wide or drill into college and department comparisons, with dashboards that surface financial KPIs and support real-time scenario planning. This session walks through the data model, methodology decisions, and institutional conversations that become possible when academic cost data becomes a shared, trusted foundation for decisions that protect both mission and financial health.
Keywords: Academic cost analysis, financial sustainability, data modeling
