Abstract:

One of the basic economic categories which have a direct influence on the financial result in public universities are the costs of their functioning. They play a key role both in assessing the profitability e.g. of individual fields of studies and in the process of operational and strategic decision making. Therefore, it is important the methods applied in these universities of recording, accounting, and calculating unit costs – forming the so-called cost accounting system – enable these entities to obtain comprehensive information on the costs, which are useful in terms of their various needs. Unfortunately, the cost accounting of public universities in Poland is determined by a number of legal regulations, which has an adverse impact on its usefulness in the effective management of university costs. This cost accounting, as part of university accounting other than requirements of obligatory external reporting, should – most of all – take into account internal information needs of its users.

The foregoing considerations have become a key premise for the development of this article, whose main aim is to identify and analyze obligatory principles and requirements regarding the cost accounting of public universities in Poland (resulting from existing legal regulations) and the assessment of this accounting usefulness to manage universities cost. The assessment was formulated on the basis of the author’s observations, as well as the survey research carried out by her.

In the first part of this article a detailed analysis of principles of recording and accounting costs in public universities in Poland was carried out, which result from existing legal regulations. Apart from the descriptive analysis, they were presented also in a model approach.

Considerations presented in the second part, concerning the assessment of the cost accounting system usefulness for effective costs management in public universities in Poland are vital for the aim of the article. The results of survey research carried out by the author’s in all public universities in Poland were, among other things, presented in this part, which confirmed her opinion about the cost accounting system of the researched universities.

The results of the analysis carried out confirm the thesis adopted at the beginning of the considerations about a limited usefulness of the obligatory cost accounting system in public universities for effective management, which was presented in the final part of the article. On the basis of the research carried out, it should be stated that public universities in Poland need more advanced management accounting tools.

Keywords:

Higher education sector, public universities, cost accounting, the model of cost accounting, survey research.