Date of Award

6-21-2021

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Education (EdD)

Department

Education

First Advisor

Thomas Barrett

Abstract

Calls for accountability continue for higher education institutions by internal and external stakeholders. College and university budgets continue to flatline or shrink, and often co-curricular programs can bear the weight of the budget cuts. There is a need for a reporting metric that shows more than the financial value of these programs as well as the benefits of collaboration across academic affairs and student affairs. The Social Return on Investment (SROI) methodology provides that metric by taking into consideration the inputs and outputs of a program, evidencing outcomes and giving them a value, establishing impact, and calculating the SROI ratio indicating the amount of social value generated by the program. While typically used for non-profits, this methodology was tested on a collaborative co-curricular program at Arkansas Tech University to demonstrate its merit as a metric for higher education. This analysis produced an SROI ratio of $2.28:$1 indicating that for every $1 invested into the program, $2.28 of social value was generated. This study establishes grounds for future research utilizing the SROI methodology within higher education as it relates to student engagement, collaboration between academic affairs and student affairs, personal assets, retention, and future earnings.

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