外文翻譯--澳大利亞高等教育的成本函數(shù)

1、<p><b>　　中文4160字</b></p><p>　　本科畢業(yè)論文（設(shè)計(jì)）</p><p>　　外 文 翻 譯</p><p><b>　　原文：</b></p><p>　　A Cost Function for Higher Education in Australia

2、</p><p><b>　　(extract)</b></p><p>　　1. Introduction</p><p>　　This study estimates a cost function for higher education in Australian universities. The estimated function

3、 is used to examine the cost of providing higher education to overseas students. In the higher education sector, production functions are useful for evaluating the structure of the industry and can serve as guides for in

4、dividual institutions on policies affecting their size and scope. Moreover, in view of the relaxation of provisions under which universities can provide higher education to</p><p>　　Cost functions also provi

5、de an opportunity to evaluate the cost of providing higher education to overseas students. Higher education costs for an individual university can be established from a detailed accounting exercise in which the explicit

6、and implicit costs allocated to courses and levels are collected. However, in obtaining the costs of overseas students, there is still be a need for a cost function because it is necessary to examine what the costs would

7、 be under alternative student numbe</p><p>　　The paper is organised as follows. Section 2 reviews some of the previous work done on the Australian higher education sector and discusses some relevant issues.

8、Section 3 presents the basic cost function model, describes the data and presents empirical results. Section 4 presents results from the application of the cost function, including the costs predictions for the provision

9、 of higher education for overseas students. Section 5 draws policy implications and conclusions.</p><p>　　2. Previous Work and Some Issues</p><p>　　Throsby (1986)estimated the cost of providing

10、higher education using data from 18 Australian universities for the period 1978 to 1982.This was followed by Lloyd et al.(1993) and Lloyd(1994),which defined the conditions under which the functional form of the cost fun

11、ction allows economies of scale and scope in the production of multiple outputs, that is research and teaching in various disciplines and at different levels. Estimates from these studies were used to analyse the impact

12、of the amalgam</p><p>　　A number of issues arise in deriving and using such a model. First, previous studies failed to account for unobserved differences between universities. Each institution has a particul

13、ar structure that may make the provision of particular courses more cost efficient in one university than in others. In addition, the explanatory variables chosen may not adequately represent the characteristics of parti

14、cular institutions; for example, there may be variation of quality and the proportion of resource</p><p>　　Second, there are aggregation problems associated with the accurate specification of the variables.

15、These occur because the choice of discipline or course level categories masks large differences between components of the aggregated discipline. For example, health includes the training of both high-cost doctors and rel

16、atively low-cost nurses. At the aggregate level they may be combined into a single composite group, but individual universities may specialise in either the high-cost or the low-co</p><p>　　Third, the conven

17、tional cost minimisation assumption does not apply naturally to the higher education sector when government (to a large extent)determines both the funding and the output. In fact, many universities may use the same model

18、 as used by the government to determine the funding of domestic students (the Relative Funding Model)for setting fees for overseas students.</p><p>　　In general, the first and second problems are features of

19、 the availability of appropriately disaggregated data and model specification. Preliminary investigation has revealed that while finding an answer to the second problem is difficult, a more rigorous study can tackle the

20、first. This third problem is intrinsic to the cost function methodology. </p><p>　　The cost function approach is nonetheless a useful tool for higher education policy development. Universities can compare th

21、eir own performance with the average performance estimated by the cost function. Universities can vary size and structure of the student body and consider the likely effect on their budget. The cost function may also be

22、fed into the mechanism for providing funding for domestic students through the Relative Funding Model. The cost function may also be used to evaluate new wa</p><p>　　3. (ellipsis)</p><p>　　4. Ap

23、plication of the Cost Function</p><p>　　4.1. Total Costs</p><p>　　In this subsection, the estimated coefficients of the chosen cost function above are used to derive estimates of total cost as d

24、efined in equations(2).The predicted values for 1997,using data for all students, are presented in Tables 3 and 4 below. In Table 3,the universities are arranged from smallest to largest(by EFTSU load),and are presented

25、with information on student load. Total cost figures–both actual and predicted–are also shown. The model yields predicted values of total costs that are</p><p>　　The cubic form of the cost function indicates

26、 rising costs of teaching at low student load levels, while the rate of growth gradually diminishes as student numbers rise because of gains from economies of scale. At very high student numbers, the cost function implie

27、s a renewed rapid rise in the costs incurred by Australian universities. A typical cubic cost function is presented in Figure 1,which represents the cost of providing higher education to a Postgraduate by Research studen

28、t, using UNSW f</p><p>　　The total cost curves for Postgraduate by Coursework Students, using fixed values for all the other variables, yield a flatter cubic curve than for postgraduate by research work. Whe

29、reas most students undertaking postgraduate by research degrees are PhD students, the coursework postgraduate courses are predominantly at the Masters level. Masters level courses would not require as expensive a staff p

30、rofile as PhD students.</p><p>　　A contrast is shown by the corresponding curve for Undergraduate students, shown in Figure 2, where costs monotonically increase by virtue of the positive coefficients obtain

31、ed for all three undergraduate student load regressors,L3,L3 andL3 ,and over the range shown the cubic term appears to have little effect. In this case, economies of scale gained from increasing postgraduate students num

32、bers are not realised in the same way with the increase in undergraduate student numbers. It is also possi</p><p>　　4.2. Average and Marginal Costs</p><p>　　The average and marginal cost estimat

33、es for 1997 are presented in Table 4.The average cost of higher education across the universities ranged between between$7900 to just under $14000 in 1997.Columns (3)to(5)present the marginal costs by level of study. The

34、 marginal costs for undergraduate students are around$2000 for smaller universities and these costs tend to increase with the EFTSU load of the universities. Monash University, the largest university with 15 times the st

35、udent load of the NTU(t</p><p>　　Marginal costs of coursework graduate students lie in between those of the undergraduate and research postgraduate students, but are also positively correlated with the size

36、of the university. In contrast, the marginal costs for Research Postgraduate students are substantially higher than both Coursework Graduate and Undergraduate students, and university size does not explain the observed v

37、ariations. Of the ten largest universities on the list, three have marginal costs over$75,000 for their Re</p><p>　　In general, the marginal cost of higher education is U-shaped, as in Figure 3 below, reflec

38、ting increasing returns with economies of scale, then diminishing returns derived from fixed inputs to teaching. At low student numbers, marginal costs are relatively high but this gradually declines as student numbers r

39、ise to about 1200 EFTSUs. Thereafter, the marginal costs increase.A typical marginal cost curve for Postgraduate Research students is shown in Figure 3, derived using fixed values for postg</p><p>　　The cost

40、 of providing postgraduate courses is higher than undergraduate courses because of the high level of specialised resources required. The distribution of students across the various disciplines is also important in explai

41、ning differences between Universities, with many universities specialising in the provision of certain courses.</p><p>　　4.3. The Cost of Overseas Students</p><p>　　The cost function can be used

42、 to estimate the cost of providing higher education to overseas students. However, information on the costs of higher education in Australia is available only for the total number of students, that is, overseas plus dome

43、stic students, at a particular date. No data are available relating to the cost that would be incurred if only domestic students were being educated. This means that estimates of the extra cost involved in educating over

44、seas students can only be obtai</p><p>　　The cost function is applied to domestic student data to predict the average and marginal costs for domestic students. Corresponding values for overseas students are

45、obtained as the residual values of the cost estimates for all students and for domestic students only. The results of this exercise for 1997 are shown in Table 5.</p><p>　　Universities across Australia vary

46、widely in the distribution of student load between domestic and fee-paying overseas students. In general, the overseas student population comprise less than five per cent of the student population in most regional univer

47、sities, but are much more important in universities located major city centres .In 1997,the top five universities, in terms of numbers of full-fee paying foreign student loads are Monash University, RMIT, the University

48、of Melbourne, UNSW and Cu</p><p>　　There is a compositional issue in generating costs for overseas students. If the cost structure of overseas students is projected from information about all students and do

49、mestic students, the implicit assumption is made that the discipline composition of overseas students is the same as that of domestic students. However, this is not the case. Data from DETYA,1998 show the discipline comp

50、osition of overseas students. In 1997 about half of all overseas students were undertaking courses in the Bu</p><p>　　With this caveat in mind, the average costs are shown in the final column of the table. I

51、n general, the apparent average cost of higher education provision for overseas students is greater than for domestic students. In many institutions, these apparent cost differences are greater by a factor of two or thre

52、e. The table also shows that while the estimated costs of higher education for domestic students are comparable across the universities nationwide, the corresponding costs for overseas studen</p><p>　　Across

53、 universities, the per capita cost of teaching for a domestic students range only between$7000 and$12000, reflecting the discipline and level of course structure of the university. In contrast, the apparent per capita co

54、st of teaching overseas students varies widely,from$9300 to as much as$48,500.The two smallest universities, the Northern Territory University and the University of Ballarat, incur the highest apparent per capita cost in

55、 mounting courses for overseas students of at least$40</p><p>　　A number of universities incur apparent per capita cost for overseas students between $20,000 and$29,000.These include Macquarie University, Sy

56、dney University of Technology, UNSW, University of Queensland and the University of Sydney. The relatively low per capita costs incurred by RMIT and Curtin for its overseas students (with large foreign student shares in

57、their total student population)may be a result of two effects. First, economies of scales are achieved with relatively high student numbe</p><p>　　5. Conclusion</p><p>　　Information derived from

58、 the estimation of a simple cost function can assist planners and university managers in addressing problems of resource allocation and pricing. Although methodological difficulties exist, the estimation of a cost functi

59、on can nevertheless help to view university production and cost relationships in a systematic and theoretically plausible way. </p><p>　　In this study, new cost functions were estimated for the Australian un

60、iversity sector using pooled series of cross-sectional data. The study enabled the quantification of the cost differences between levels of studies and subject areas. It was hypothesised that university total costs would

61、 exhibit varying cost movements along production stages suggesting a higher order functional form. Accordingly a cubic functional form was used to estimate model. It was found that the cubic and quadratic terms</p>

62、<p>　　The new cost function will be a useful tool for university managers in exploring the effect of varying size and structure of courses on university budgets. To illustrate the use of the tool the model was use

63、d to derive estimates of the overall cost of providing higher education to overseas students. Application of the model suggested a large variation in average costs per overseas student between universities reflecting stu

64、dent load and course composition.</p><p>　　文章出處：Discussion Papers in Economic, Finance and International Competitiveness No175 ，P1-P12，P18</p><p><b>　　譯文：</b></p><p>　　

65、澳大利亞高等教育的成本函數(shù)</p><p><b>　　(節(jié)選)</b></p><p><b>　　引言</b></p><p>　　本文主要評(píng)價(jià)澳大利亞高校教育成本函數(shù)，運(yùn)用這個(gè)函數(shù)來(lái)計(jì)算海外學(xué)生接受高等教育的成本。在高等教育部門，生產(chǎn)函數(shù)有利于評(píng)價(jià)產(chǎn)業(yè)結(jié)構(gòu)，而且能夠影響私人機(jī)構(gòu)在政策引導(dǎo)上的大小和范圍。此外，鑒于高校

66、為國(guó)內(nèi)學(xué)生提供全額支付的教育政策上的放松，成本函數(shù)有助于制定合理的定價(jià)政策。</p><p>　　成本函數(shù)也為評(píng)估海外學(xué)生接受高等教育的成本提供了機(jī)會(huì)。私立高校的教育成本是建立在詳細(xì)的核算基礎(chǔ)上的，在核算過(guò)程中，將分配到課程和各階層的顯性和隱性成本歸集起來(lái)。但是，為了準(zhǔn)確計(jì)算海外學(xué)生的教育成本，仍然需要成本函數(shù)。因?yàn)橛斜匾u(píng)估在有和沒有海外學(xué)生情況下的總學(xué)生數(shù)的成本。對(duì)于不同學(xué)生成本變動(dòng)的情況可以通過(guò)高校間同一時(shí)

67、期不同學(xué)生的比較來(lái)取得。因此成本函數(shù)的使用為計(jì)算海外學(xué)生接受高等教育的凈收益（或成本）提供了方法。</p><p>　　本文由以下部分構(gòu)成。第二部分回顧了澳大利亞高校教育部門先前所做的工作，并且研究了一些相關(guān)的重要問(wèn)題。第三部分列出了主要的成本函數(shù)模型以及相關(guān)數(shù)據(jù)和結(jié)果。第四部分列出了運(yùn)用成本函數(shù)所得到的結(jié)論，包括海外學(xué)生接受高等教育的成本預(yù)測(cè)。第五部分得出政策涵義和結(jié)論。</p><p>

68、;<b>　　前期工作和相關(guān)問(wèn)題</b></p><p>　　Throsby(1986)估算的高校教育成本所使用的數(shù)據(jù)來(lái)自1978年到1982年間的18個(gè)澳大利亞大學(xué)。后來(lái)，Lloydetal.(1993) 和Lloyd(1994)明確在成本函數(shù)的形式下，能夠節(jié)省產(chǎn)品多樣化輸出的規(guī)模和范圍，這是從多學(xué)科和不同階層下研究得出的。這些研究都用來(lái)分析1987年改革形成的融合所產(chǎn)生的影響。特別是這個(gè)

69、計(jì)算方程用來(lái)估算兩個(gè)或兩個(gè)以上機(jī)構(gòu)混合所形成的可能的節(jié)約成本。澳大利亞最新的成本函數(shù)是由Throsby 和 Heaton(1995)得出的。他們運(yùn)用1991年42家機(jī)構(gòu)的交叉數(shù)據(jù)分析了機(jī)構(gòu)運(yùn)營(yíng)成本和10個(gè)廣闊的學(xué)科領(lǐng)域和3個(gè)研究層次的學(xué)生數(shù)量之間的關(guān)系，同時(shí)利用學(xué)生數(shù)量的二次方函數(shù)（包括邊際成本）。他們的成本函數(shù)被Baker, Creedy 和 Johnson(1996)用來(lái)計(jì)算海外學(xué)生的教育成本。</p><p&g

70、t;　　同時(shí)，在運(yùn)用此模型時(shí)也產(chǎn)生了一系列問(wèn)題。首先，前面的研究沒有解釋高校間的差異。高校中各機(jī)構(gòu)有特殊的結(jié)構(gòu)，這些機(jī)構(gòu)的一些特別的課程可能會(huì)產(chǎn)生不同于其他學(xué)校的成本效益。而且，變量的選擇也可能不符合這些機(jī)構(gòu)的特點(diǎn)。例如：會(huì)出現(xiàn)質(zhì)量以及研究資源的比例的變化。因此需要作出一個(gè)假設(shè)就是教學(xué)質(zhì)量和學(xué)生數(shù)量的變化無(wú)關(guān)。</p><p>　　其次，是關(guān)于對(duì)變化準(zhǔn)確描述的相關(guān)問(wèn)題。這些問(wèn)題是因?yàn)閷?duì)學(xué)科和課程水平分類的選擇而隱

71、含在各學(xué)科組成部分中的差異所引起的。就像醫(yī)療水平也包括了對(duì)高成本醫(yī)生和相對(duì)低成本護(hù)士的培訓(xùn)。在總體水平上，他們可能由單個(gè)的團(tuán)隊(duì)組成，但是私立大學(xué)可能要么研究高成本要么研究低成本的產(chǎn)品。因此，他們的總成本會(huì)因?yàn)閷⒋髮W(xué)作為一個(gè)整體而使用一個(gè)平均參數(shù)被高估或低估。</p><p>　　第三，傳統(tǒng)成本最小化的假設(shè)不能自然運(yùn)用到各個(gè)高校，即使政府能夠保證資金的輸出。實(shí)際上，很多高校可能根據(jù)政府保障的國(guó)內(nèi)學(xué)生的資金來(lái)運(yùn)用相同

72、的模型制定海外學(xué)生的學(xué)費(fèi)。</p><p>　　一般來(lái)說(shuō)，第一和第二個(gè)問(wèn)題的特點(diǎn)是集中在對(duì)分散數(shù)據(jù)的合理使用和模型敘述上。初步調(diào)查發(fā)現(xiàn)找到第二個(gè)問(wèn)題的解決方法有些困難，而這項(xiàng)更嚴(yán)密的調(diào)查能夠解決第一個(gè)問(wèn)題。第三個(gè)問(wèn)題涉及內(nèi)在的成本函數(shù)方法論。</p><p>　　成本函數(shù)方法仍然是高校教育政策發(fā)展的有效工具。高校能夠通過(guò)成本函數(shù)來(lái)比較自身績(jī)效與平均水平間的差異，從而調(diào)整規(guī)模大小和學(xué)生構(gòu)成以

73、及考慮預(yù)算的影響。成本函數(shù)通過(guò)相關(guān)輔助模型也有助于完善對(duì)國(guó)內(nèi)學(xué)生提供資金的機(jī)制。成本函數(shù)也用于評(píng)估補(bǔ)償機(jī)制的新方法中以及對(duì)國(guó)內(nèi)全額交納學(xué)費(fèi)學(xué)生的定價(jià)政策。它也可以估算為海外學(xué)生提供高等教育的成本和收益，從而指導(dǎo)相應(yīng)的定價(jià)政策。</p><p><b>　　3、（略）</b></p><p><b>　　4、成本函數(shù)的應(yīng)用</b></p>

74、;<p><b>　　4.1、總成本</b></p><p>　　這一部分中，上述選擇的成本函數(shù)的估算系數(shù)是用來(lái)估算等式（2）中確定的總成本。1997年的預(yù)測(cè)值列示在下列表格3和4中。表格3中高校從小到大排列列示了學(xué)生貸款數(shù)，也列示了實(shí)際和預(yù)測(cè)的總成本。模型得出了總成本的預(yù)測(cè)值，這個(gè)值合理接近實(shí)際值，70%的預(yù)測(cè)值中有10%的錯(cuò)誤限度。這也表明了在學(xué)生貸款和教學(xué)總成本之間相對(duì)固

75、定的關(guān)系，也暗示了平均成本所在的一個(gè)不太寬松的邊緣。這個(gè)問(wèn)題會(huì)在下面進(jìn)一步研究。</p><p>　　成本函數(shù)的立方式反映了較低的學(xué)生貸款水平下增長(zhǎng)的教育成本，同時(shí)，增長(zhǎng)率隨著學(xué)生人數(shù)的上升逐漸下降，這是由于經(jīng)濟(jì)規(guī)模所獲得的利潤(rùn)引起的。在學(xué)生人數(shù)較多的高校，成本函數(shù)顯示成本正不斷增加。一個(gè)典型的三次成本函數(shù)在表格1中列示，它代表了研究生的教育成本，同時(shí)使用了各學(xué)科和課程水平的固定價(jià)值。這個(gè)曲線是澳大利亞進(jìn)行研究生

76、教育的大學(xué)的標(biāo)準(zhǔn)。對(duì)于小型的高校，總成本曲線也是相同形狀，只是在相對(duì)較低的成本水平。研究生貸款的增加可能是由于高校不斷增加的課程數(shù)目帶來(lái)的越來(lái)越昂貴的員工測(cè)評(píng)而導(dǎo)致的。隨著高校博士項(xiàng)目的增加，就有可能增加更加昂貴的研究項(xiàng)目數(shù)量，同時(shí)這也會(huì)引起教職工更高的報(bào)酬要求。</p><p>　　通過(guò)使用其他變量的固定價(jià)值，研究生的總成本曲線更加平緩。然而大多從事研究領(lǐng)域的研究生都會(huì)成為博士生，而他們?cè)诖T士生階段的課程作業(yè)表

77、現(xiàn)更優(yōu)。碩士階段所需的員工報(bào)酬卻沒有博士階段高。</p><p>　　通過(guò)與研究生相對(duì)應(yīng)的曲線的對(duì)比，表格2中顯示，成本隨著研究生貸款額增加而單調(diào)遞增，所有形式中，三次方形式只有很小的影響。因此，經(jīng)濟(jì)效益并不與因?yàn)檠芯可鷶?shù)量的增加而得以實(shí)現(xiàn)。高校的研究層次中可能會(huì)產(chǎn)生教育成本的交叉補(bǔ)助，這會(huì)讓一些具有研究生的特色研究課程更便宜。</p><p>　　4.2、平均成本和邊際成本</p&

78、gt;<p>　　表格4顯示的是1997年的平均和邊際成本。1997年高校教育的平均成本是從7900美元到14000美元。柱狀圖3和5顯示了個(gè)各學(xué)科層次的邊際成本。小型高校研究生的邊際成本大約在2000美元，而且隨著EFTSU貸款而增加。Monash大學(xué)，它擁有的學(xué)生是NTU大學(xué)（最小大學(xué)）的15倍，它的研究生的邊際成本是16300美元。一般來(lái)說(shuō)，研究生的邊際成本比本科生要小。</p><p>　　

79、本科在讀生的邊際成本存在于本科畢業(yè)生和研究生兩者中，但是也的確與學(xué)校規(guī)模有關(guān)。相反，研究生的邊際成本實(shí)際上要高于本科畢業(yè)生和在讀生，而且學(xué)校規(guī)模也不能解釋其中的差異。表中10個(gè)規(guī)模最大的高校中，有三所的研究生邊際成本超過(guò)75000美元，但同時(shí)，剩余學(xué)校的邊際成本在35000美元以下。在另一個(gè)級(jí)別的大學(xué)中，一些小規(guī)模學(xué)校的邊際成本超過(guò)60000美元。一些高校在讀本科生的邊際成本明顯高于研究生的邊際成本：這些學(xué)校包括Macquarie 大學(xué)

80、、La Trobe大學(xué) 、RMIT、 QUT大學(xué)和Monash大學(xué)。這些差異是由一系列的原因所致。首先，大型高校沒有必要一定需要大量的研究生數(shù)量。第二，各高校間特色的高成本課程的構(gòu)成存在很大不同。第三，一些小規(guī)模大學(xué)的加入可能產(chǎn)生復(fù)雜的結(jié)果。</p><p>　　一般而言，教育邊際成本呈U字形，正如圖3所示，邊際成本隨著資金規(guī)模的增加而減小，到最低值后又隨著資金規(guī)模的增加而增加。學(xué)生數(shù)量較少時(shí)，邊際成本相對(duì)較高，

81、但會(huì)隨著學(xué)生數(shù)量的增加到大約1200 EFTSU而逐漸下降。此后邊際成本逐漸增加。圖3所示的這條重要的邊際成本曲線是根據(jù)本科生和研究生貸款數(shù)量得到的。</p><p>　　研究生的教育成本由于對(duì)特別資源的更高要求而高于本科生。由于制度差異而導(dǎo)致的學(xué)生分配情況對(duì)分析高校間的差異有重要意義，因?yàn)橐恍└咝Ｔ谀承┱n程的選擇上是由自身特點(diǎn)所決定的。</p><p>　　4.3、海外學(xué)生成本</

82、p><p>　　成本函數(shù)能夠運(yùn)用到估算海外學(xué)生高等教育成本中，但是在澳大利亞，有關(guān)教育成本的信息只能針對(duì)總體學(xué)生數(shù)，也就是某一時(shí)點(diǎn)國(guó)內(nèi)學(xué)生和國(guó)外學(xué)生之和，沒有相關(guān)數(shù)據(jù)時(shí)是只針對(duì)國(guó)內(nèi)學(xué)生教育成本的。這意味著其他包括外國(guó)學(xué)生教育成本的估算只能通過(guò)成本函數(shù)和估算其他關(guān)于學(xué)生數(shù)量下的成本來(lái)獲得。因此這種估算的質(zhì)量只能通過(guò)經(jīng)驗(yàn)得來(lái)的成本函數(shù)來(lái)決定。</p><p>　　成本函數(shù)利用國(guó)內(nèi)學(xué)生的數(shù)據(jù)來(lái)預(yù)測(cè)國(guó)

83、內(nèi)學(xué)生的平均成本和邊際成本。相應(yīng)的海外學(xué)生的價(jià)值通過(guò)全體學(xué)生和國(guó)內(nèi)學(xué)生的成本的剩余價(jià)值來(lái)獲得。由此得出的結(jié)果在表格5中顯示。</p><p>　　澳大利亞高校對(duì)于國(guó)內(nèi)學(xué)生和海外學(xué)生間貸款的分配有很大差異。一般來(lái)說(shuō)，很多高校的海外學(xué)生人數(shù)比總?cè)藬?shù)少5%，但在位于城市中心的大學(xué)里他們是很重要的一部分。1997年，根據(jù)大學(xué)全額支付學(xué)費(fèi)的海外學(xué)生貸款數(shù)量，排名前五名的大學(xué)是Monash大學(xué)、RMIT、墨爾本大學(xué)、UNSW

84、和Curtin技術(shù)學(xué)校。但是就相對(duì)的學(xué)生份額，RMIT海外學(xué)生貸款占了29%，是最高的，其次是Curtin技術(shù)學(xué)校，占了27%。</p><p>　　海外學(xué)生產(chǎn)生的成本有它的構(gòu)成條件。如果海外學(xué)生的成本構(gòu)成來(lái)自全體學(xué)生和國(guó)內(nèi)學(xué)生的信息，就要做出一個(gè)隱含著的假設(shè)，就是海外學(xué)生的構(gòu)成原則與國(guó)內(nèi)學(xué)生相同。但是，這不是原因。DETYA的數(shù)據(jù)顯示了海外學(xué)生的構(gòu)成原則。1997年，有一半的海外學(xué)生主修商業(yè)、管理、經(jīng)濟(jì)學(xué)等課程

85、，而國(guó)內(nèi)學(xué)生主修這些課程的人數(shù)只有20%。因?yàn)樯虡I(yè)、管理、經(jīng)濟(jì)學(xué)是相對(duì)低成本的課程，所以上述假設(shè)可能會(huì)使海外學(xué)生的平均成本膨脹。</p><p>　　由此而產(chǎn)生的平均成本可以在柱狀圖中表示。一般來(lái)說(shuō)，海外學(xué)生高等教育的顯性平均成本高于國(guó)內(nèi)學(xué)生。這些顯性成本差異是有兩種或三種原因造成的。圖標(biāo)顯示，高校間國(guó)內(nèi)學(xué)生的高等教育成本是可以比較的，而海外學(xué)生相應(yīng)的成本變化很大，不易比較。</p><p&g

86、t;　　各個(gè)高校中國(guó)內(nèi)學(xué)生的每單位教育資本成本從7000美元到12000美元，它反映了高校各學(xué)科和課程的結(jié)構(gòu)。相反，海外學(xué)生的教育成本差異很大，從9300美元到48500美元。其中兩所規(guī)模最小的大學(xué)，Territory大學(xué)和Ballarat大學(xué)，他們承擔(dān)的最高的資本成本至少有40000美元。</p><p>　　一些高校承擔(dān)的海外學(xué)生每單位顯性資本成本在20000美元和29000美元之間。他們包括Macquari

87、e大學(xué)、悉尼技術(shù)學(xué)院、UNSW、昆士蘭大學(xué)和悉尼大學(xué)。而RMIT和Curtin大學(xué)所承擔(dān)的相對(duì)低的資本成本是有兩點(diǎn)引起的。首先，經(jīng)濟(jì)規(guī)模由相對(duì)較多的學(xué)生形成。其次是在總的貸款中海外學(xué)生所占的比例較大，上述提到的構(gòu)成問(wèn)題也不是很重要，因?yàn)楹Ｍ鈱W(xué)生的制度結(jié)構(gòu)和全體學(xué)生的制度結(jié)構(gòu)很接近。</p><p><b>　　5、結(jié)論</b></p><p>　　從一個(gè)簡(jiǎn)單的成本函數(shù)

88、得到的信息有助于計(jì)劃制定者和高校管理者解決資源分配和定價(jià)的問(wèn)題。雖然還有技術(shù)層面的困難存在，但成本函數(shù)的計(jì)算在合理的系統(tǒng)和理論化方式下對(duì)了解高校的產(chǎn)出和成本間的關(guān)系有很大幫助。</p><p>　　在研究中，新的成本函數(shù)也適用于使用合并交叉數(shù)據(jù)的高校部門。研究層面和學(xué)科領(lǐng)域之間的成本定量也有差別。同時(shí)假設(shè)了高校的總成本會(huì)反映出隨著更高效的產(chǎn)出而帶來(lái)的成本變動(dòng)。因此估算模型中使用了三次方的形式。研究發(fā)現(xiàn)，大多數(shù)的實(shí)