The budgets and capital assets (land, buildings, and equipment) of Alabama’s public colleges and universities are significant. The management and stewardship of institutional budgets and facilities, therefore are crucial to long term institutional success and have been found to be an important factor in academic program quality and reputation, faculty hiring, student enrollment, and student outcomes. Ineffective financial and facility stewardship have also been found to impact programmatic and institutional accreditation. The following measures give insight to the financial operations of a college or university:

4.1 Institutional Revenues Report for Community Colleges and Institutional Revenues Report for Public Universities show the sources of revenues for the institutions including tuition, state appropriations and external funding from grants, contracts and auxiliary operations. This information is reported to IPEDS.

4.2 Institutional Expenditures Report for Community Colleges and Institutional Expenditures Report for Public Universities show how institutions spend their funds. Expenditures are differentiated into four subsets: (1) student-focused expenditures; (2) mission related expenditures; (3) autonomous activities expenditures; and (4) facilities and capital expenditures. This information is reported to IPEDS.