Useful Stats: State Rankings for Academic R&D Expenditures Per Student

The Chronicle of Higher Education annually provides in its Almanac an accessible state-by-state snapshot of a variety of statistics useful in measuring the magnitude and health of higher education. The 2002-2003 Almanac of Higher Education, released recently in print and online, is no exception. For example, figures are provided for college enrollment trends, demographics, faculty pay, tuition and fees, state appropriations, expenditures, R&D, state spending on student aid, and federal funds for academic research.

For more meaningful comparisons across large and small states, data is often standardized using other selected statistics such as population or gross state product. Previous Useful Stats articles in the SSTI Weekly Digest have, for example, presented academic R&D expenditures on a per capita basis (see the April 18, 2003 issue of the Digest). To tie university research activity to a perhaps more relevant measure, SSTI has prepared a table drawing from the past two Chronicle almanacs that standardizes academic R&D expenditures by total enrollment (undergraduate, graduate and professional). The table reveals Maryland led the nation in both 1999 and 2000 for research spending per student. Alaska, Massachusetts, the District of Columbia, and Connecticut rounded out the top five for 2000.

In the table, the states are presented in rank order based on the percent change between the two years. At 31.26 percent, Mississippi posted the greatest percentage increase from 1999 to 2000 in research spending per student, followed by Maine at 28.52 percent. New Hampshire, Montana and Nevada finish the top five slots.

The SSTI table is available at: http://www.ssti.org/Digest/Tables/100303t.htm

More information for purchasing the 2002-2003 Almanac of Higher Education is available through http://www.chronicle.com.