The cost structure of higher education in further education colleges in England

Pamela Lenton

Economics of Education Review, 2008, vol. 27, issue 4, 471-482

Abstract: This paper examines the cost of the increased provision of higher education courses within further education colleges in England. We believe this to be the first attempt to fit a cost function specifically to the further education sector. Cost functions for a sample of 96 colleges over a 2-year period, from 2000 to 2002, are fitted using a panel data methodology as well as stochastic frontier analysis. We compare and contrast our findings with a sample of 959 US colleges. Our findings indicate that most further education colleges are able to benefit from economies of scale. Results from both methodologies suggest the presence of product-specific economies of scale, substantial ray economies of scale and indicate that higher education classroom-based courses, such as business studies, as well as vocational courses display substantial economies of scope.

Date: 2008
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (16)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0272-7757(07)00089-1
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
Working Paper: The Cost Structure of Higher Education in Further Education Colleges in England (2006)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ecoedu:v:27:y:2008:i:4:p:471-482

Access Statistics for this article

Economics of Education Review is currently edited by E. Cohn

More articles in Economics of Education Review from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().