This booklet was prepared to assist college administrators in understanding the nature and purpose of management information and how such information can be organized into a functional system. In the first section the author discusses the increasing need for management information in higher education. More than ever before it is necessary for administrators to show efficient management, to be able to justify budget requests and state objectives that can be measured with concrete data. The second section concentrates on the transformation of administrative data to management information, and the third section discusses the concept of planning, programming, and budgeting as an effective management tool to assist administrators in their decisionmaking responsibilities. The final section of this monograph is devoted to planning models. It focuses on the use of simulation models to project hypothetical outcomes from the selection of different alternative courses of action a college or university might pursue. (HS)