Analysis of cost and cost function of higher education in Iran

As investment in the universities will effect the investment on human resources , and human capital usually effect on economic growth, So investigating the higher education expenditures and estimating cost functions helps development planners for analyzing the average of quantity growth and human capital improvement and also it can help optimal distribution of " Expenditure and Investment Credit " in the universities.
The main goal in this research is investigating and analyzing the different kind of expenditures and estimating the cost function of higher education in Iran. Hence we use expenditure credit and the number of students in non-medical universities (year:1388) using statistical and econometrics methods and cross section data for estimating cub-douglus and teranslog cost functions.
The results show return on scale in these universities. It means that increasing the number of students decrease unit production cost. The second result is about the shape of cost function. It clearly shows cost function of higher education in non-medical universities has a common shape as a quadratic function. Also we have estimated different unit cost for different universities in different level (e.q B.sc M.sc and phD. Students) .this is because of oldness,structional factors, the combination of human force or physical condition.