Using a mailed questionnaire survey of administrators, this dissertation examined sources of income, proposed expenditures, and financial practices in publicly supported college and university residential continuing education centers. Data were gathered, organized, and interpreted in terms of well established principles of educational finance as noted in the literature for the United States and several other countries. General findings revealed that residential centers in the United States have assumed the characteristics of a public service agency. Programs are highly adaptive to the expressed interest of participants, and the centers enjoy a close relationship with their clientele. This situation will probably continue because individual participants are the chief source of income for residential centers. These individuals realize the value of lifelong learning and are willing to pay for it. (Author/LY)