How the Budget Model Works

The Model at a Glance

The model is built around three primary components: revenue allocation, expense allocation, and incentives and strategic investment.

Together, these components provide schools and units with greater visibility into the relationship between their activities and resources while ensuring IU Indianapolis can invest collectively in priorities that benefit the campus.

Revenue Allocation

The model shares tuition revenue with the schools that generate it, creating a clearer connection between academic activity and available resources.

Schools receive an established portion of undergraduate, graduate, and professional tuition revenue based on the activities associated with that revenue. This approach recognizes schools' contributions to instruction and academic programs while providing resources centrally to support campuswide operations and strategic priorities.

Gifts, indirect cost recovery (ICR), and other revenues continue to accrue to the appropriate units based on established allocations and applicable restrictions.
Campus assessments were eliminated as overhead expenses to schools to be managed centrally.

Expense Allocation

The model establishes a more consistent approach to funding and allocating expenses across IU Indianapolis.

Expense budgets are aligned with the schools and units responsible for those activities, while campus overhead costs are funded centrally. This structure supports greater consistency across campus and allows IU Indianapolis to address shared commitments and priorities at the institutional level. Additionally, in response to University Administration (UA) Assessment redesign (Phase I), the campus adopted the same drivers to pass UA costs down to schools.

Incentives and Strategic Investment

The budget model creates incentives for schools and units to grow revenue, manage resources effectively, collaborate across organizational boundaries, and plan for the future.

Schools and colleges may retain budget savings when there is an identified plan for their strategic use, providing greater opportunity to make long-term investments and respond to emerging priorities.

At the same time, centrally retained resources provide IU Indianapolis with the ability to make strategic investments across campus. These resources can be allocated based on performance measures and priorities that advance IU 2030 and support the university's mission.

 

What the Model Supports

The IU Indianapolis budget model is designed to:

  • Provide schools and units with a simple, transparent, and predictable framework for planning.
  • Strengthen the connection between academic activity, revenue generation, and resource allocation.
  • Provide consistent approaches to allocating revenues and expenses across campus.
  • Encourage collaboration and the development of new revenue opportunities.
  • Support strategic use of resources and long-range planning.
  • Maintain central capacity to fund mission-critical operations and invest in campus priorities.
  • Align resources with the IU 2030 pillars of Student Success and Opportunity, Transformative Research and Creativity, and Service to Our State and Beyond.

The model provides a framework for balancing local decision-making with the collective needs of IU Indianapolis—giving schools and units greater ability to plan while preserving the university's capacity to invest strategically in its mission.