The Lumina Foundation has recently issued a report entitled, Funding the InfoStructure, which discusses the disparities in technology infrastructure at different colleges and universities and the need to fund technology as a regular part of doing business rather than an 'add-on' expense at the end of the year.

The report lists four factors that impede financial planning for technology:

• Failure to establish effective asset-management programs for technology
  
• Failure to adopt a life-cycle approach to technology replacement
  
• Failure to segment longer term costs into groups to match available revenue streams
  
• Failure to develop methods to measure Return on Investment from technology ue

Larger universities have generally done better than smaller institutions at integrating technology and developing and maintaining a technology infrastructure. They have greater resources and more flexibility in how technology is financed.

Revenue options discussed in the article include:

• Debt financing
  
• Vendor arrangements
  
• Leasing equipment
  
• Revolving funds
  
• User fees
  
• E-commerce
  
• Spinning off for-profit subsidiaries
  
• Other arrangements (consortia, partnerships, etc.)