The role of performance indicators in calculating the cost of academic services

Financing higher education is one of the main concerns of science and technology policy makers. Due to the increasing limitations of the public budget of the government, it is necessary to use new methods of financing in this area. One of the available methods for financing universities is the service purchase method, which requires accurate calculation of the price of services provided by universities. The main purpose of this article is to "design a model for calculating the price of university services" and the main question is what is the "appropriate model for calculating the price of university services"? According to the available literature, first the initial model was designed and then 30 semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted with 30 experts in various fields of higher education. Expert opinions were extracted using content analysis method and based on that, the final model was presented to calculate the cost of academic services. The resulting model indicates that in order to calculate the price of university services, in addition to the "financial dimension", which is only concerned with student education activities and is calculated based on the per capita student model, another dimension of university services called "brand and identity" that observes On research and technology activities, social and international should also be considered. This dimension includes components such as "international status and prestige", "national status and prestige" and "position of the university in the higher education system".