The concept of traditional planning, programming, and budgeting systems (PPBS) is defined and compared with imperative planning, a term used to refer to whatever procedures higher education officials use to integrate program planning and budgeting. The University of Wisconsin system is described as an example of emerging budgetary practice in higher education, and it is claimed that imperative planning is succeeding in higher education while PPBS remains dormant in state government. The following major components of an operating, traditional PPBS process are defined: budget format, goals and objectives, cost-benefit analyses, multiyear projections, long-range planning, program procedures, budgetary procedures, and information procedures. Traditional PPBS was intended to guide and integrate all governmental activity. Imperative planning can be more easily implemented in higher education and PPBS in state government because of organizational similarity and a history of real or attempted program coordination. The origin of traditional PPBS is varied and often involves outside experts, while imperative planning not only originates with the executive heads of state systems, multicampus systems, and campuses, but has their ongoing support. Traditional PPBS was introduced into the states when resources were relatively plentiful, while imperative planning is higher education's response to resource scarcity. Proponents of imperative planning have less faith in quantitative analysis than seems to be required in traditional PPBS. Traditional PPBS was seen to promise the opportunity for governors and legislators to achieve specific objectives by reallocation of funds in the state budget. Few higher education administrators deal with dollars as an abstraction, and there are few illusions about the practical limits to shifting dollars to achieve program objectives. A bibliography is included. (SW)