Strengthening Financial Analysis at Cincinnati State Technical and Community College
Impact at a Glance
Connected financial investment to measurable student outcomes
Used Power BI to compare outcomes for students who did and did not receive targeted support
Improved understanding of the costs and benefits of student success initiatives
Expanded access to program-specific data visualizations
Strengthened data literacy and data-informed decision-making
The Challenge
Cincinnati State Technical and Community College serves approximately 5,500 students across four locations and relies on a mix of revenue sources to support student-facing programs. Many of these programs are funded through designated or grant funds and are expected to improve specific student outcomes.
The college wanted to better understand:
- Which student success investments were producing measurable benefits
- How those benefits compared with the financial resources required
- Whether a grant-funded initiative should continue after external funding ended
- How to support future funding decisions with stronger evidence
- How to create a repeatable model for evaluating similar initiatives
A grant-funded student success program nearing the end of its funding period provided an opportunity to test a more rigorous financial impact analysis.
The Action
Cincinnati State used NACUBO’s Financial Impact Analysis toolkit and its Power BI resources to examine the relationship between program costs and student outcomes.
The college:
- Customized Power BI templates to match institutional data structures
- Populated the model with student and financial data from the grant-funded initiative
- Added a comparison group of students who did not receive the targeted support
- Used the model to compare outcomes across student groups
- Created visualizations that leaders could use to explore program results and financial requirements
This approach gave the college a more consistent way to evaluate both the student impact and financial sustainability of targeted initiatives.
The Results
Immediate Impact
- Improved understanding of the student outcomes associated with designated funding
- Enabled leaders to compare students who received targeted support with those who did not
- Helped clarify the resources required to sustain initiatives that demonstrated positive outcomes
- Gave college leaders and board members clearer visual evidence to support funding discussions
Process Improvements
- Expanded use of Power BI for program-specific financial analysis
- Made data accessible to executive leaders, board members, unit directors, and student-facing professionals
- Allowed users to filter data based on their specific questions or needs
- Strengthened institutional data literacy and storytelling with data
- Added financial sustainability and scalability to conversations about student success investments
Ongoing Momentum
- Keep datasets current and improve processes for populating dashboards
- Scale the financial impact analysis approach to additional initiatives
- Continue strengthening data literacy across the institution
- Make data-informed resource decisions a standard practice
“The more specific you can be about the costs and the benefits of an initiative, and the more you can breakdown the details and show the benefits of a program, the more likely you are to make better decisions about what to fund, and how to prioritize funding.”
Chris CalvertFormer CFO and Vice President for Finance
