Issues pertaining to educational finance in colleges and universities are considered. It is suggested that solving problems of organization will lead to shifts in management style, which in turn may affect flows of funds to disciplines. The outcome may be a change in academic scope and either limiting or expanding institutional opportunities. The principal questions for research on institutional finance stem from an understanding that colleges and universities are not businesses, and from a shift of attention away from questions of productive efficiency and toward a new understanding of the importance of process in the structuring of institutional finance. It is claimed that colleges and universities are not businesses because they are not organized vertically, are not concerned with profit, and have not traditionally invested much energy and resources in the process of conducting business itself. In organizing an institutional research agency, it is important to recognize that the American campus is fundamentally like a municipality, and that the problems that institutions of higher education will face in the 1980s--organizationally, structurally, and financially--are similar to those that American communities have been facing for more than a decade. Questions on curriculum and the scope of the academic enterprise are addressed in relation to financial planning. Additional topics include: public policy related to the financing of graduate education; changes in how the federal government pays for sponsored research; and the financial consequences of regulations, competition, and cooperation among institutions. (SW)