"Most colleges and universities have educational rather than economic missions, yet they must make difficult financial decisions. Baum and McPherson's Campus Economics is a clear and excellent guide to using economic thinking to help make those decisions. It will prove helpful to those with and without a knowledge of economics." --Thomas Bailey, president of Teachers College, Columbia University "From opportunity cost to sticker prices, Sandy Baum and Michael McPherson's concise book renders the sometimes inscrutable economics of higher education both comprehensible and compelling." --Charles Clotfelter, Duke University "Anyone involved in the complexities of higher education, and that means faculty, administrators, students, staff, alumni, donors, trustees, friends, critics, commentators, and policymakers, needs to read this primer--with plenty of sticky notes handy. Baum and McPherson, masters of the craft, offer wonderfully digestible nuggets of wisdom about the power (and limits) of economics applied to the preservation of our most hallowed institutions." --Michael Feuer, George Washington University "Economics is the science of hard decisions when there's no optimal solution, only trade-offs. Baum and McPherson provide a powerful framework for discussing the vexing challenges facing higher education today: merit versus need-based aid, the appropriate uses of endowment funds, and others.

I will be handing out copies of Campus Economics in my next senior faculty meeting." --Thomas J. Kane, Harvard University " Campus Economics should be required for all administrators, faculty, trustees, and anyone else who has an interest in understanding and contributing to the fiscal well-being of their campus. The useful concepts and practical case studies will help minimize harmful misunderstandings between offices and departments and more importantly, create a shared language and framework to address the difficult complexities around financial decision making in higher education." --Francesca Purcell, Harvard University.