A Study On The Cost Measurement Of Chinese University Student Training Based On Activity-based Costing

Education is of fundamental importance to the fulfillment of the great long-term development of our country. Since reform and opening up, higher education of our country has got access to the significant development, initially forming the socialist higher education system which adapts to national economical construction and social development. This kind of system is in various levels and forms and possesses basically complete disciplines. However, with the popularization of higher education, rapid expansion of the education scale, inadequate investment in education and shortage of funds have brought risks to the autonomy of colleges and universities. This present situation has raised urgent needs for the university to carry on the cost measurement of students training and to provide accurate students training cost for our country and society.As our existing accounting system does not require universities to establish cost accounting system and universities do not have cost information of students training, which is the mainly source of "integrated quota" of national financial education funding and fee standards of the price supervision, we need to explore a scientific and reasonable method of measuring university students training cost, based on existing accounting information. This thesis will make a study on it with basic ideas and methods of Activity-Based Costing (referred to as ABC). ABC is more scientific and reasonable than the traditional methods, of which our university students training cost meets the conditions. The application of ABC makes the process simpler and more effective, the measuring results more authentic and reliable, providing more valuable information on training cost for our country and society.The innovation and significance of this thesis is:Firstly, based on cost accounting and educational economics theories, this paper summarizes the concept of training costs of university students. Secondly, it creatively designs two-dimensional composition table concerning the training cost. Thirdly, it makes an analysis on the feasibility of cost measurement of university students training, based on the ABC. Fourthly, according to basic principles and methods of ABC, it designs the process of cost measurement of university students training. Lastly, selecting a provincial public university as the actual example, it makes a comparative analysis between measured training costs and students' average comprehensive quotas together with tuition standards of the same year, with collected data including final accounts statements, subject balance sheets, and sub-sector and project schedules in 2007 and 2008. Meanwhile, it measures homochronous students training costs according to the traditional methods with the purpose of analyzing cost differences caused by the two measuring methods.