With the easy access to data, metrics of all sorts have become common place. Similarly, valuation is something we hear constantly about and we ourselves live and breathe. I am writing about both of these now because, I am looking at staffing data for the members of Consortium of Liberal Arts Colleges and also having to deal with annoying pricing issues with Adobe and SPSS software licensing.

Benchmarking is a very useful exercise in that it provides a first level comparison with those that we would consider peers. For example, we can use staffing metrics to justify additional positions (which has become a rare event in Higher Ed recently) or more importantly, we can use this to justify reallocation of existing staff. Of course, during difficult budget discussions, this can be used to reduce positions. The issue with data is that, even if it is done scientifically, the results tend to be in the eyes of the beholder. However, it is very important to treat these data for first level comparisons and not read too much into them for reasons I explain below.

Valuation is another problem. We hear that the cost of higher education is too high or that we argue that the cost of a software is ridiculously high. In most of these cases, the argument is based on how fast it is growing relative to CPI. As painful a question as it is, is this the right comparison to go by?

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