Ed, very helpful insights on accounting developments, and interesting.

Basically, relying on published data of state schools for past years is
pointless unless we know whether the school was already reporting in sync with
the new principles (which we probably wouldn't) or we're looking at a
comparative restatement of prior years' results, which probably isn't required.
Whether Michigan State really "hasn't lost money since the mid-1990s" depends on
whether the author of the article Bret cited took his "facts" from the file or
from properly restated data.  If 6/30/01 was the first year-end for the new
requirements, we've seen almost no data thus far under the "approved" methods.

boB


"Moller, Edward N." wrote:

> I am an accountant, and one for an institution of higher learning to boot.
> I will not comment on UMTC's practices, as anything I could say about the
> matter would doubtlessly be misinterpreted.  I will clarify some
> misconceptions.
>
> Mount Ida College is an independent (aka private) college while Minnesota is
> a public university.  By extension that makes them part of the state
> government.  There are some distinct differences in accounting principles,
> but accounting developments in recent years have put the financial reporting
> of not-for-profits and the rest of the world on a more level playing field.
> Universities do not report on the cash basis.  They report on accrual just
> like most other businesses.  The fiscal year ended 06/30/01 was the first
> year where govenrnmental agencies were required to record depreciation; all
> other not-for-profits have been doing this since the 1980's.  Overhead costs
> must now be allocated in a reasonable manner to all functional areas, which
> is something all other not-for-profits have been doing since the 1990's.
>
> And all this time the rest of you thought accounting was boring.