What is the difference between budgeted FTE enrollment, estimated FTE enrollment, and actual FTE enrollment?

The differences in these enrollment measures stem from the need to plan and fund instruction earlier in the budget cycle than the campus can measure it precisely. Many years ago the university and the state developed a convention used to project and estimate instructional workload for budgeting purposes. Enrollment funding provided to the campus is determined by the estimated enrollment. Only after the budget cycle is over does the campus know exactly how much instructional activity occurred. The campus still tracks actual instructional activity, however, and uses it to evaluate resource adequacy at the school and division level.

Budgeted FTE enrollment is projected headcount enrollment multiplied by projected instructional workload per individual student. Projected workload is, by convention, equal to the average student workload over the most recent two academic years that were completed prior to the submission of the Regent's budget to the state Department of Finance.

Estimated FTE enrollment is the estimated headcount enrollment multiplied by the projected instructional workload per individual student. The difference between budgeted and estimated is that during the actual year being funded, the projected headcount used to calculate budgeted FTE enrollment is replaced by actual headcount enrollment. But by convention, the study load per student remains the projected version that was original developed for the Regent's budget.

Actual FTE enrollment can be determined at the end of the academic year. At that point, the actual student credit hours that students generated during the year can be converted to FTE workload using the method described above. Actual FTE will exceed estimated FTE if the actual average study load was higher during the year under consideration than it was during the two years that determined the projected study load for budgeting purposes.