The supply of university enrollments: University administrators as utilitymaximizing bureaucrats

The supply of enrollments in higher education has received relatively littl e attention in both theoretical and empirical economic research. To address this, we formulate and test a model of the supply of enrollments in higher education in which administrators are modeled as utility maximizing bureau crats. We find evidence that individual presidents and provosts have a sign ificant effect on enrollment supply and faculty demand in a panel of eleven public colleges and universities in Maryland from 1988 to 1996, implying t hat institutions have enough market power to permit the preferences of admi nistrators to influence enrollment supply and faculty demand.