Book Review: Community college finance: A guide for institutional leaders by Mullin, C. M., Baime, D. S., & Honeyman, D. S.

Abstract

Mullin, C. M., Baime, D. S & Honeyman, D. S. (2015). Community college finance: A guide for leaders. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. 336 pp. US$45.00 (hardcover). ISBN 978l-l 18-95491 -1.Despite voluminous research, community college finance is still mystifying to many, and rightfully so. There are multiple variables, stakeholders, policies, and contexts to consider, which soon turns community college finance into a black box of sorts. Mullin, Baime, and Honeyman (2015), in their recent work Community College Finance: A Guide for Institutional Leaders, set out to demystify some of the complexity of community college finance. This is no easy task, yet the authors accomplish it.Perhaps the greatest strength of the book is its attention to detail, without getting lost in pedantic or jargon-laden explanations. The details, however, are not simply listed in bullet point style; they are contextualized and woven into the narrative. In addition, the authors include concise graphics and tables to aid in the understanding of the material. Yet while the book accomplishes its main task, the authors' analysis at times lacks a critical assessment of certain situations which simplifies the understanding of higher education institutions and their relation to the state and society as a whole. Nevertheless, the book will serve as an excellent resource for community college presidents and administrators, state policy makers, officials in policy organizations and higher education policy, and finance professors and researchers. The book is succinctly organized, which makes understanding this complex material much simpler. There are three main sections and each section is then divided further into chapters that focus on specific aspects of the original section heading. In the first section, titled Sources of Revenue, which has six chapters, the authors examine the sources of community college funding. The authors look first at different factors that have influenced funding, such as the history of community college, enrollment trends, and state over the last half century in order to contextualize their examination. The authors then break down the various sources of revenue from federal, state, and local sources. This in itself is a herculean task. However, the authors are quick to caution that no two states' community college funding approaches are identical. This crucial insight is dealt with in Chapter 2. The centerpiece of section one is Chapter 5, which examines a crucial source of revenue: student financial aid. The topic of student financial aid could necessitate another book, but the authors present the main tenets of student financial aid in a logical and easy-to-understand fashion while not watering the topic down.The second section, titled Expending Fiscal Resources, which has four chapters, shifts to the examination of expenditure of resources, or exactly how community colleges spend their money. The expenditure of money should not be viewed as a simple accounting mechanism; rather, as the authors make clear, institutional objectives are realized through expenditures (p. 113). In short, help an organization realize its mission and public purpose. Chapter 7 breaks down exactly what community colleges across the country spend their money on. Not surprisingly, costs related to instruction comprise the largest expenditures. Instruction, in this sense, refers to academic instruction, occupational and vocational instruction, community education, preparatory and adult basic education and remedial and tutorial instruction conducted by the teaching faculty of the intuition's students (p. …