Program Classification Structure
Uniform reporting of educational expenditures requires a standard structure for classifying and displaying data. The program classification structure outlined and described in the Chart of Accounts provides the structure for Maryland institutions of higher education.
The program structure outlined includes all current unrestricted, current restricted expenditures, and agency fund expenditures:
| Program Number | Sub-Program Number | Program Name |
| 001 | Instruction | |
| 01 | General Instructions | |
| 02 | Special Instruction | |
| 002 | Research | |
| 01 | Institutes and Research Centers (Agricultural) | |
| 02 | Individual or Project Research | |
| 03 | Public Services | |
| 004 | Academic Support | |
| 01 | Libraries | |
| 02 | Academic Administration | |
| 03 | Academic Computing | |
| 04 | Other Academic Support | |
| 005 | Student Services | |
| 006 | Institutional Support | |
| 01 | Institutional Administration | |
| 02 | Information Technology | |
| 03 | Other Support | |
| 007 | Operation and Maintenance of Plant | |
| 01 | Physical Plant | |
| 008 | Auxiliary Services | |
| 01 | Auxiliary Enterprises | |
| 02 | Intercollegiate Athletics | |
| 017 | Scholarships & Fellowships | |
| 01 | Scholarships (Undergraduate) | |
| 02 | Fellowships (Graduate) | |
| 042 | Agency Funds | |
| 044 | Plant Funds |
1.0 Instruction
This category should include expenditures for all activities that are part of an institution’s instruction program. Expenditures for credit and non-credit courses; for academic, vocational, and technical instruction; for remedial and tutorial instruction; and for regular, special and extension sessions should be included.
Expenditures for departmental research and public service that are not separately budgeted should be included in this classification. This category excludes expenditures for academic administration when the primary assignment is administration-for example, academic deans. However, expenditures for department chairpersons, for whom instruction is still an important role of the administrator, are included.
1.1 General Academic Instruction
This sub-program includes expenditures for formally organized and/or separately budgeted Instruction activities that are carried out during the regular academic year as defined by the institution. Included are academic and/or vocational/technical credit offerings leading to a formal post secondary education degree or certificate program; open university, short course, or home study credit offerings; remedial instruction; non-credit Instruction offerings through an institution’s extension division, adult, or continuing education program.
1.2 Special Instruction
Special instruction includes expenditures for formally organized and/or separately budgeted Instruction activities (offered either for credit or not for credit) that are carried out during a summer session, interim session, or other period not common with the institution’s regular term. This subcategory is to be used to classify only expenditures made solely as a result of conducting a special session (such as faculty salaries associated with the special session).
2.0 Research
This category should include all expenditures for activities specifically organized to produce research outcomes, whether commissioned by an agency external to the institution or separately budgeted by an organizational unit within the institution. Subject to these conditions, it includes expenditures for individual and/or project research as well as those of institutes and research centers. Expenditures for departmental research that are separately budgeted specifically for research are included in this category.
2.1 Institutes and Research Centers
This sub-program includes expenditures for research activities that are part of a formal research organization created to manage a number of research efforts. While this subcategory includes agricultural experiment stations, it does not include federally funded research and development centers, which should be classified as independent operations.
2.2 Individual or Project Research
This sub-program includes expenditures for research activities that normally are managed within academic departments. Such activities may have been undertaken as the result of a research contract or grant or through a specific allocation of the institution’s general resources.
3.0 Academic Support
This category should include funds expended primarily to provide support services for the institution’s primary missions-instruction, research, and public service. This category includes: (1) the retention, preservation, and display of educational materials–or example, libraries, museums, and galleries; (2) the provision of services that directly assist the academic functions of the institution, such as demonstration schools associated with a department, school, or college of education; (3) media such as audiovisual services and technology such as computing support; (4) academic administration (including academic deans but not department chairpersons) and personnel development providing administration support and (5) separately budgeted support for course and curriculum development.
4.1 Libraries
Libraries include expenditures for organized activities that directly support the operation of a catalogued or otherwise classified collection.
4.2 Academic Administration
Academic Administration includes expenditures for activities specifically designed and carried out to provide administrative and management support to the academic programs. This sub-program includes the expenditures of academic deans (including deans of research, deans of graduate schools, and college deans), but does not include the expenditures of departmental chairpersons.
This sub-program also includes expenditures for formally organized and/or separately budgeted academic advising. Expenditures associated with the office of the chief academic officer of the institution are not included in this sub-program, but should be classified as institutional support.
4.3 Academic Computing
This sub-program includes expenditures of formally organized and/or budgeted activities that provide computing support to the three primary mission programs. Excluded form this category is administrative data processing, which is classified as institutional support.
4.4 Other Academic Support
This sub-program includes expenditures for museums and galleries, educational media services, formally organized and/or separately budgeted course and curriculum development and other activities that provide support to the three primary mission programs.
5.0 Student Services
This category should include funds expended for the offices of admissions and of the registrar and those activities whose primary purpose is to contribute to the student” emotional and physical well-being and to his/her intellectual, cultural, and social development outside the context of the formal instruction program. The program includes expenditures for student activities, cultural events, student newspaper, intramural athletics, student organization, counseling and career guidance (excluding informal academic counseling by the faculty), student aid administration, and student health service (if not operated as a self-supporting activity). Excluded from this category are activities of the institution’s chief administrative officer for student affairs, whose activities are classified as institutional support. Also excluded are formal and informal academic counseling, outright grants to students, and expenditures supported by student activity funds.
6.0 Institutional Support
This category should include expenditures for: (1) central executive-level activities concerned with management and long-range planning of the entire institution, such as the governing board, planning and programming, and legal services; (2) fiscal operations, (3) administrative data processing; (4) space management; (5) employee personnel and records; (6) logistical activities that provide procurement, store rooms, safety, security, printing, and transportation services to the institution; (7) support services to faculty and staff that are not operated as auxiliary enterprises; and (8) activities concerned with community and alumni relations, including development and fund raising.
Appropriate allocations of institutional support should be made to auxiliary enterprises, hospitals, any other activities not reported under the Educational and General heading of expenditures.
6.1 Institutional Administration
This sub-program includes expenditures for all central, executive-level activities concerned with management and long-range planning for the entire institution. All officers with institution-wide responsibilities are included, e.g., president, chief business officer, chief academic officer, chief student affairs officer. Offices or activities that should be included in this sub-program are the accounting office, bursar, internal and external audits, personnel administration, purchasing and maintenance of supplies and materials, space management, campus-wide communication, transportation services, general stores, printing shops, safety services, public relations and development.
6.2 Information Technology
This sub-program includes expenditures for computer services that provide support for institution-wide administrative functions.
7.0 Operation and Maintenance of Plant
This category should include all expenditures or current operating funds for the operation and maintenance of physical plant, in all cases net of amounts charged to auxiliary enterprises, hospitals, and independent operations. The program does not include expenditures made from the institutional plant fund accounts, but includes all expenditures for operations established to provide services and maintenance related to grounds and facilities. Also included are utilities, fire protection, property insurance, rent and similar items. Activities included are physical plant administration, building maintenance, repairs and minor renovations, custodial services, and landscape and grounds maintenance.
8.0 Auxiliary Enterprises
The distinguishing characteristic of auxiliary enterprises is that they are managed as essentially self-supporting activities. Examples include residence halls, food service, intercollegiate athletics, college stores, faculty clubs, some parking facilities, and student health services operated on a self-supporting basis. This category includes all expenditures and transfers relating to the operation of auxiliary enterprises, including expenditures for operation and maintenance of plant and for institutional support.
17.0 Scholarships and Fellowships
This category should include expenditures for scholarships and fellowships-from restricted and unrestricted current funds-in the form of grants to students selected by the institution or PELL Grant. It also should include trainee stipends, prizes, and awards, except trainee stipends awarded to individuals who are not enrolled in formal course work, which should be charged to instruction, research, or public service as appropriate. If the institution is given custody of the funds, but there is neither a selection by the institution nor an entitlement program, the funds generally should be accounted for and reported as an Agency Fund rather than as a Current Fund.
Recipients of grants are not required to perform service to the institution as consideration for the grants, nor are they expected to repay the amount of the grant to the funding source. Aid to students in the form of tuition or fee remissions also should be included in this category. When services are required in exchanged for financial assistance, as in the federal College Work-Study Program, charges should be classified as expenditures of the department or organizational unit in which the service is rendered. However, remissions of tuition or fees granted because of faculty or staff status, or family relationship of students to faculty or staff, should be recorded as staff benefit expenditures in the appropriate functional expenditure category.
17.1 Scholarships
Scholarships include grants-in-aid, trainee stipends, tuition and fee waivers, and prizes to undergraduate students.
17.2 Fellowships
Fellowships include grants-in-aid and trainee stipends to graduate students. Fellowships do not include funds for which services to the institution must be rendered, such as payments for teaching.
42.0 Agency Funds
This program includes those resources for which the institution acts as the custodian or fiscal agent but does not itself own. In such cases, the institution usually provides depository and accounting services to the organization or persons to which the funds belong. For example, some institutions may establish agency funds for student organizations and act as a “checking account” for those organizations.
44.0 Plant Funds
This program is used to account for (1) unexpended plant funds to be used for the acquisition of long-lived assets for institutional purposes, (2) funds set aside for the renewal and replacement of institutional properties, (3) funds set aside for debt service charges and retirement of indebtedness on institutional plant, and (4) the cost (or fair value at time of donation) of long-lived assets (other than those of endowment and similar funds) and the sources from which the cost is funded, including associated liabilities.
