The question of whether two-year colleges with and without faculty unions differ in terms of selected institutional characteristics was investigated. Attention was directed to expenditures spent on instruction, the percentage of revenue obtained from various sources, the educational costs per full-time equivalent student, the faculty-student ratio, and the average faculty salary. Data for the study were obtained from the 1979-1980 Higher Education General Information Survey. The study population was 319 public two-year colleges, 189 of which had faculty bargaining units and 130 of which did not have faculty bargaining. Findings include the following: both groups of institutions devoted the majority of expenditures to instructional costs; faculty at colleges with unions earned a higher average salary and taught fewer students than faculty in similar institutions without unions -- this resulted in a higher cost of instruction at colleges with unions; institutions with collective bargaining raised a greater percentage of their revenues from tuition and fees and state and local appropriations, while nonunion colleges received higher percentages from grants, gifts, contracts, and endowment income. (SW)