On account of the complicated upper secondary educational system in Taiwan, estmating the required educational expenditures on high school and vocational school students is difficult, at best, In view of this, an alternative model was developed in this study to calculate the "true" unit cost per student in the two tracks. Moreover, both descriptive and regression statistical methods were employed to test the feasibility and stability of this new approach. Ample evidence demonstrates that the figures derived from this study are close to those reported by the government. Also, the student unit cost estimated in this study was proven to be a better and more stable variable in explaining the variations in total educational expenditures than two other computing approaches. It is concluded that "current expenditure" should be a more reasonable indicator than "capital expenditure" in terms of estimating the unit cost of a high school student in Taiwan.