In Ohio, for example, state funding for one community college jumped 11% in each of the past two years because of the new formulas. These performance metrics generally affect just a portion of an institution's public funding-but that can be significant. In some states, including Ohio and Indiana, public officials have ordered a new approach to funding, based not on how many students enroll but on what they accomplish.ĭetails vary, but colleges typically earn points under such a system for pushing students to take science, engineering and math for ensuring that they complete classes that they start for improving on-time graduation rates and for boosting more low-income students to degrees. "It's a reflection of a much more corporate model of running a university, and it's getting away from the idea of the university as public good," says John Curtis, research director for the American Association of University Professors.Įfforts to remake higher education generally fall into two categories. They worry that it will upend the essential nature of a university, where the Milton scholar who teaches a senior seminar to five English majors is valued as much as the engineering professor who lands a million-dollar research grant.Īnd they fear too much tinkering will destroy an educational system that, despite its acknowledged flaws, remains the envy of much of the world. Some professors express deep concern that the focus on serving student "customers" and delivering value to taxpayers will turn public colleges into factories. This new emphasis has raised hackles in academia. The National Governors Association echoes that mantra it just formed a commission focused on improving productivity in higher education.Ĭarol Johnson lectures at Texas A&M she netted the university $279,617, according to the chancellor's report. He tells administrators it's not enough to find efficiencies in their operations they must seek "academic efficiency" as well, graduating more students more quickly and with more demonstrable skills. King Alexander, president of California State University at Long Beach.īut no more: "Every conversation we have with these institutions now revolves around productivity," says Jason Bearce, associate commissioner for higher education in Indiana. "For years and years, universities got away with, 'Trust us-it'll be worth it,'" said F. Department of Education.Īnd among those with diplomas, just 31% could pass the most recent national prose literacy test, given in 2003 that's down from 40% a decade earlier, the department says. Just over half of all freshmen entering four-year public colleges will earn a degree from that institution within six years, according to the U.S. The movement is driven as well by dismal educational statistics.
That totaled more than $78 billion in fiscal year 2008, according to the National Association of State Budget Officers.
States spend about 11% of their general-fund budgets subsidizing higher education. As budget pressures mount, legislators and governors are increasingly demanding data proving that money given to colleges is well spent.
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