Influences of Institutional Expenditure Patterns on the Development of Students' Leadership Competencies

The central purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between the expenditure patterns of over 300 colleges and universities and changes in students' perceptions of their leadership abilities over a 4-year period. Our findings, unlike those of most earlier studies, suggest that institutional expenditure patterns do have a statistically significant, albeit modest, influence on the growth of students' leadership abilities. These atypical findings, in the context of prior studies, may be due to conceptual and methodological attributes of this study that sought to alleviate the deficiencies in previous research noted by Wenglinsky, namely, the use of path analytic procedures to examine the indirect and direct effects of institutional expenditure patterns and distinguishing among different types of expenditure categories. The implications of these findings for those who study the effects of college on students and those responsible for promoting student learning are discussed.