What States Are Doing To Increase Productivity In Higher Education?
ARIZONA
Increase and Reward Completion – The state’s board of regents is leading an effort to design a simplified, student-level state funding model that will create incentives for: a) increasing transfers from community colleges to four-year institutions; b) improving course and degree completion rates; and c) improving coordination of tuition and financial aid policies.
Generate and Reinvest Savings – Leaders of public colleges and universities are banding together to form a Joint Council of Presidents, charged with identifying and eliminating unnecessary duplication in academic programming and administrative services.
Educate and Train in Affordable Ways – Community colleges and four-year institutions have created innovative, lower-cost educational delivery models. Among models already created are options to lock in tuition for students that complete an associate’s degree first, “no-frills” university centers focused on high-demand majors, and co-located community college and regional university campuses.
To learn more about Arizona’s plan to increase productivity, see Goal Four of the Arizona Board of Regents' Vision 2020: The Arizona University System Long-term Strategic Plan.
INDIANA
Increase and Reward Completion – Indiana improved its performance-based funding model in 2009, allocating 15 percent of core state funding to institutions on the basis of increases in the numbers of degrees awarded, degrees completed on time, degree completion among low-income students and community college transfer rates. In an effort to sustain and expand this funding model, the Indiana Commission for Higher Education and the Indiana Chamber will focus on educating and engaging legislators, trustees, and local chambers of commerce. Read a summary of the latest performance funding changes here.
Educate and Train in Affordable Ways – The business sector will use its leadership and expertise to independently analyze and promote the statewide savings that can be generated and reinvested through increased mission differentiation, program consolidation and collaboration and joint purchasing among regional colleges and universities.
MARYLAND
Increase and Reward Completion – Maryland will continue to use the state’s P-20 council to implement the Governor’s policy road map for meeting statewide completion goals within available resources.
Generate and Reinvest Savings – In the past three years, the University System of Maryland has used a combination of new technology and new instructional approaches to redesign a number of "bottleneck" courses with high costs and high failure rates. The results have been impressive, with some courses posting per student cost savings of 60 percent and 20-point gains in student pass rates. Over the next four years, the system will lead an effort to redesign 24 “bottleneck” courses (e.g. general education, developmental, entry-level mathematics and sciences) at institutions across the state. Cost savings from the redesigns will be reinvested in additional redesign projects, thus creating a statewide, self-sustaining productivity improvement process.
MONTANA
Increase and Reward Completion – The state’s board of regents has directed the university system to create funding incentives for increasing enrollment, student transfer and the numbers of students who graduate from community colleges.
Generate and Reinvest Savings – The regents are also spearheading a move toward a shared information technology system for the state’s two-year colleges to promote greater efficiency in information sharing and processing across institutions.
Educate and Train in Affordable Ways – Lawmakers approved and provided funding for a virtual community college in their 2009 legislative session. The college, a collaborative effort of the state’s existing two-year institutions, will package degree programs and workforce training from campuses and deliver them statewide online. The state’s board of regents is also working with two-year colleges to develop a common set of courses for transfer to four-year institutions, which will eventually be offered by the virtual community college.
More information about Montana's productivity initiative is available here.
OHIO
Generate and Reinvest Savings – In addition to extending a policy of requiring public colleges and universities to achieve annual efficiencies equal to three percent of their operating budgets, the Ohio University System has created a statewide efficiency council to coordinate and share innovative business practices and establish measurable efficiency standards across institutions.
Moving forward, the system plans to expand and intensify its efforts to improve operational efficiency, specifically, implementing a common technology platform, combining a number of “back office” business functions, expanding joint purchasing and implementing e-procurement. The savings generated from these moves, estimated to exceed $100 million, will help increase the capacity to graduate more Ohio residents and contain pressure to increase tuition.
TENNESSEE
Increase and Reward Completion – Gov. Phil Bredesen has signaled interest in making significant changes to both the state’s incentive-based funding program and the public higher education funding formula that support the goal of doubling annual degree production in the state by 2025.
Educate and Train in Affordable Ways – As part of the effort to reach the state’s degree goals, the Tennessee Higher Education Commission will launch a statewide effort to better serve adult students who left college without degrees but with a significant number of credits. Based on recommendations from the Adult Strategies Working Group, the newly-formed initiative will develop new approaches to institutional policy and academic programming, using three to five community colleges as test sites. The initiative also will help to identify changes in state policy (e.g. formula/performance funding and student financial aid) that will promote higher enrollment and graduation rates for adult students.
TEXAS
Increase and Reward Completion – The Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board is preparing a request for the 2011 Legislature to reward increases in course and degree completion instead of just increases in enrollment by determining state funding at the end of semester instead of the beginning. Lawmakers considered but ultimately did not adopt a similar request in 2009. Read the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board’s Investing In Success: A Comprehensive Funding Strategy to learn more about the state’s rationale for a new funding policy.
Generate and Reinvest Savings – Gov. Rick Perry has issued an executive order that charges the state’s higher education coordinating board with performing “a broad and comprehensive review of system-wide opportunities for achieving cost efficiencies” in areas such as finance, academic programming, facilities and purchasing. A final report, including recommendations for action, is due to the governor by November 1, 2010.
Educate and Train in Affordable Ways – Over the past year, the state’s community colleges and four-year institutions have developed a transfer compact for mechanical engineering, which creates common learning outcomes for required first- and second-year courses, paving the way for smoother two- to four-year transfers. The state will expand on this process over the next four years by joining other states that have focused on degree-level learning outcomes.