Universities aren't in the habit of tracking cross-subsidies from one program to another, or from academic programs in general to administration.

But it's easy to establish that such cross-subsidies exist.

Universities generally charge the same number of dollars in undergraduate tuition per student credit hour, regardless of what the student is taking.   But the cost of providing that student credit hour varies markedly across programs (even across courses within programs, if you want to cast that fine a net).  So high enrollment programs with low costs per student credit hour will necessarily tend to cross-subsidize low enrollment programs with high costs per SCH.

To track the flows of money precisely would require data that universities don't always bother to track, even for administrators' use.

But, unless Shelby Thames has completely incapacitated the Institutional Research operation at USM, per program figures for cost per Student Credit Hour and total SCHs taught in an academic year ought to be available.  Tuition is a known quantity, and (depending on how the legislature appropriates money), it may also be possible to estimate state subsidy per SCH.

Whence a back-of-the-envelope calculation would be able to show which liberal arts programs are actually generating net positive revenue for USM.

It would also be able to show what departmental budgets might look like if units that generate net positive revenue from tuition dollars were able to keep a little more of what they generate.

Robert Campbell