| SALT LAKE CITY — Utah Commissioner of Higher Education David Buhler is hoping to bring greater rewards for colleges and universities that meet certain benchmarks in student success.
For now, the rewards aren't much when compared to an institution's overall budget. But they represent a growing movement toward performance-based funding in education.
"We're ready to notch it up several notches, and we are working on a new model for Utah based on the experience we've had the past couple years," Buhler said. "We need to have a model that is transparent, that is meaningful, that helps the institutions move forward not only in completion, but in access and quality."
The proposal from the Utah System of Higher Education asks the Utah Legislature to allocate $5 million for ongoing performance funding, more than triple what lawmakers have provided in one-time pilot appropriations in each of the past two legislative sessions.
The funding started with a one-time allocation of $1 million from the Legislature in 2013. The funding was provided as a pilot mechanism for Gov. Gary Herbert's 66 by 2020 initiative, which seeks to have two-thirds of adults in the state with either a technical certification or a college degree by the year 2020.
The $1 million was split among Utah's eight public colleges and universities according to how closely they complied with individual performance goals. Such goals included retention, increased completion rates, fulfilling general education math requirements, improvements to graduate education, and students' transition from developmental math to successful completion of a college math course.
In the 2014 legislative session, lawmakers provided another one-time allocation of $1.5 million in outcome-based funding with similar performance metrics. That funding will be awarded in July.
Institutions haven't been required to report back how they spend the money because it has been uncertain if future funds would be awarded, and the allocations have been small relative to other available funds, Buhler said.
"But the idea is to make somewhat of their funding tied to performance, and by making it ongoing, then there will be additional ways they can use the money that will be more meaningful," he said.
The proposal to raise the amount to $5 million was included in a budget request to the state Legislature earlier this year as an augmentation, not a re-allocation, of normal funding appropriations. The commissioner and several university presidents are preparing metrics in this model for approval by the Utah State Board of Regents in January before going before the state Legislature.
Despite the hurdle of going from one-time allocations to higher ongoing funding, Sen. Stephen Urquhart, R-St. George, says it's an "extremely" realistic step in making institutions more graduation-friendly.
"It's now time to start measuring performance and rewarding performance. It changes behaviors," Urquhart said. "Often performance follows funding. It makes sense to figure out what our goals are and to fund achievement of those goals."
Buhler said the difficulty with incentives is placing equal emphasis on all areas that lead to student success. Over-emphasizing graduation rates, for example, could inadvertently pose challenges to access or academic quality, he said.
"You've got to address each side of that triangle or it can be misshaped," he said. "We're trying to find a formula that rewards performance and excellence in each of those areas."
Buhler added that how the proposal fares in the coming legislative session will largely depend on Herbert's budget proposal being released Thursday morning.
"I don't have the vantage point that the governor does, but he always prioritizes education and higher education, so I'm confident he'll do the best that he can as he balances out all of those needs," he said. |