Funding Public Colleges and Universities for Performance

Book excerpt: This is the first comprehensive study of performance funding of public colleges and universities, which directly ties some state allocations to institutional results on designated indicators. The book examines performance funding as a national phenomenon, identifying the champions and critics of the program, the arguments for and against its adoption, the most common performance measures used for funding, the characteristics that separate stable from unstable initiatives, and the inherent possibilities and problems. The authors include case studies of performance funding in Tennessee, Missouri, Florida, Ohio, and South Carolina, and explore the reasons why Arkansas, Colorado, Kentucky, and Minnesota first adopted and later abandoned their programs. They examine problems with performance funding, such as the reluctance of the academic community to agree on reasonable goals for undergraduate education or the failure to apply performance funding to the academic departments that are mostly responsible for institutional results on many of the performance indicators. The contributors conclude that although the future of performance funding remains cloudy, one aspect is becoming clear—taxpayers are unlikely to continue to accept the proposition that performance should count in all endeavors except state funding for higher education. Contributors include E. Grady Brogue, Joseph C. Burke, Juan C. Copa, Patrick Dallet, Terri Lessard, Gary Moden, Dr. Robert B. Stein, Michael Williford, and David J. Wright.