The Hammond School is a private college preparatory school in Columbia, South Carolina. At the time of this work, Hammond had a total enrollment of somewhat more than 500 students in grades K-12. As is the case with all educational institutions, the balance of tuition and enrollment is a veritable tightrope that must be walked with great caution. While Hammond maintained a reputation for a high quality education, alternative options in the Columbia area required that tuition costs at least recognize those options.

IMS Quantum was engaged to build an Integrated Planning Model to be used as a tool for evaluating the financial effects of changes in tuition and enrollment. While the model would not be considered exhaustive, it allowed these two issues to be examined quickly and accurately. Because of a need to evaluate the new budget in terms of a longer term plan, the model was set up to show the effects of changes over a period of three years.

The first part of the model dealt with Revenues. It allowed administrators to chose a tuition plan for the lower, middle and upper schools using current rates and a rate of increase for the following three years. Anticipated enrollment numbers were then entered for the current and each of the three planning years. Here the model could have included some explicit treatment of the effect of tuition increases on the number of current students retained and the number new students gained. In this model, this effect was left up to the administrator to evaluate subjectively. Tuition income was then computed and added to income from the Annual Fund Drive and any other revenues obtained to yield a total income value for each of the planning years. It should be noted that each of these areas could have been expended to capture a more detailed understanding of the factors that drive each of the sources of income.

The expense section of the model starts with a revue of faculty and staff salaries. A salary worksheet was developed, which allowed administrators to deal explicitly with each member of the faculty. Here also student-to-faculty ratios are computed. These ratios become measures of performance and change as enrollment increases without a commensurate increase in faculty. The rest of the expense part of the model looks very much like a traditional budget. Because of the focus of the project, the assumption was made that these expenses would remain relatively fixed over the planning period.

In general, the Integrated Planning Model served an important purpose in providing a tool for evaluating a host of different scenarios very quickly. As these scenarios were tried, dialogue could be focused on the pros and cons of each case. IMS Quantum is committed to providing sophisticated decision-making and planning tools to meet the needs of administrators seeking success in today's complex educational environment.