Got questions about membership? Click here for FAQs!

Promoting Quality Higher Education– An Investment in Oregon’s Future

OTHER LABOR NEWS

Failed Legacy: outcomes-based funding

April 29, 2015 / Phil Lesch

Statesman Journal
April 28th, 2015

Ramin Farahmandpur
GUEST OPINION


In the post-Kitzhaber era, one may be surprised to learn that a controversial vestige of the disgraced leader’s vision has just been enacted.
The Higher Education Coordinating Commission (or HECC), which has oversight of post-secondary institutions in Oregon, has marched ahead with its planned adoption of a new degree-rewarding funding plan.
Will HECC’s decision to adopt a formula that pays universities and community colleges for the number of degrees it produces actually improve the state’s college graduation rates?
Student enrollment has traditionally driven state support for public higher education. Now, however, this new “outcomes-based” funding model will replace the old system, in an effort to boost graduation rates.
HECC admits that outcomes-based funding forces Oregon’s seven public universities to compete with one another over limited resources. And, even though the commission acknowledges that this model is “suboptimal,” it plans to push forward with the proposal anyway.
The State Higher Education Executive Officers Association (SHEEO), which monitors higher education finance, reports that the surge of student enrollment in Oregon has outpaced state support.
Since the 2007 recession, full-time student enrollment increased by 27.7 percent while state and local support fell by 30 percent.
Among states, Oregon ranks 33rd in support for public higher education. The state allocates just 5 percent of its tax revenues and lottery profits to this sector, below the 5.8 percent national average.
Mary Spilde, president of Lane Community College, doubts that outcomes-based funding will improve graduation rates. Spilde says the new funding model rewards and punishes colleges based on the number of students they graduate.
As she points out, 4,600 of LCC’s 11,000 students enrolled each fall are full-time, degree-seeking students. Most are also first-generation, low-income or minority students and the majority of these will take four or even six years to complete what has traditionally been a two-year degree. For this, LCC will be punished under the new system.
Outcomes-based funding forces colleges to focus on quantity, not quality, of degrees awarded. One consequence of penalizing institutions for failing to meet unrealistic churn rates may be grade inflation.
More important, outcomes-based funding doesn’t account for the soaring college tuition that most students can’t afford without relying on student loans. Nor does it acknowledge that a growing number are nontraditional and first-generation college students who require more resources and services, and who must work full-time to support themselves and their families.
If colleges fail to meet projected graduation rates, programs may be cut, courses may be canceled and instructors may be dismissed.
For students, it means they will have fewer courses to choose from, fewer academic advisers to guide them and fewer resources and services to help them succeed. In the long run, this downward spiral may impede degree-attainment, not promote it.
Because outcomes-based funding doesn’t increase state support for public higher education, disadvantaged and underrepresented students will suffer the most.
As pressure mounts to achieve the state’s 40-40-20 goal, these students’ struggles will be a testament to a failed governor’s failed education legacy.

Ramin Farahmandpur of Portland is a professor in the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy, Graduate School of Education, Portland State University. He can be reached at rfp@pdx.edu.

Blog Categories