The simple definition of new money is revenue to the university that has not already been allocated/extracted from a full- or part-time student.
The definition itself doesn't bother me as much as the way in which the phrase is bandied around in relation to online course and program initiatives. For example, "We may not need to determine how to allocate resources to that project based on the amount of new money it will generate."
There's two problems here. First, how do you estimate the amount of new money -- the potential for revenue -- when you have no idea about the market opportunities? Who on this campus, other than University College, understands the potential to attract new matrics and non-matrics to this university? The second problem is that the university is starting to cover ground that University College has already been over. We've created and participated in dozens of studies and research the last 10 years that show it takes an average of 3 years to begin to see a return on investments in online courses and programs. New money or not, if the university is not prepared to eat some costs out of the gate on any of the initiatives already in the pipeline, then they're going to lose out peer institutions (which we're doing anyway).
The rub is that much of the bulk of the costs that everyone keeps talking about -- the infrastructure, technology and support resources -- are already committed, they're just not being exploited. Redirecting and focusing existing investments (overhead) is readily and easily done. Building quality online courses and programs is readily and easily done. Do that, and the new money will come. It's not complicated.
The hardest part for these people is to get off the stick and act. The audience, market, and need is there. It's time we start to do something in a formalized, organized, and qualified manner.
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