State colleges will move to performance funding


  • July 24, 2015
  • /   staff reports
  • /   education

TALLAHASSEE — A new performance-funding system for state colleges was approved Thursday by the State Board of Education, the latest step in Florida officials' drive to tie money for higher education to how well institutions and their students do.

Board members unanimously approved the model, but some did so hesitantly, discouraged by standards that were left out of the model under legislative instructions or did not feature as prominently in the scores colleges receive because of a scarcity of data.

The performance system will control how the state divvies up a total of $40 million, including $20 million of new funding for colleges and $20 million in money that colleges were already receiving. In that respect, it resembles a larger performance plan for state universities that started last year

Colleges will be scored based on four categories:

— Completion rates for students.

— Retention rates for students.

— Job placement.

— Continuing education for graduates and the entry-level wages for graduates.

Based on those metrics, Pensacola State College is among five schools — Pasco-Hernando State College, the College of Central Florida, Daytona State College and Northwest Florida State College — that will not receive new funding and will have some of their existing funding held back until they show improvement.

{{business_name}}Pensacola State College President Ed Meadows. Pensacola State College President Ed Meadows.

In a newsletter to staff earlier this year, PSC President Ed Meadows wrote:

One major concern with the measures used in the performance based funding model is the state’s inability to track students across state lines; as one of six colleges bordering another state, we are disadvantaged when considering measures such as employment or salaries following graduation. Additionally, the workforce programs that we offer are based upon the employment possibilities and workforce needs in our area. Salaries, in general, are lower in this area than in some other regions of the state.

Thus, our geography, the salaries in our area, and other factors such as lower graduation rates for Pell participating students place us at the bottom of the institutions in the Florida College System.

Because of this, our ability to secure future funding through the performance based funding formula is going to be a challenge. However, with challenges come opportunities. Together, we can make this an opportunity to participate in planning and implementing changes in order to improve our performance on the measures used by the Legislature for performance based funding.

We have already taken steps to improve our graduation rates. For example, we are contacting students who are within a few classes of graduation but are no longer enrolled. We have reserved some scholarship funds in order to get those students enrolled and graduated.

We are also working with UWF to develop a reverse transfer agreement. A reverse transfer agreement will allow a student who transfers to UWF and is within 2 or 3 classes of completing the Associate in Arts degree to transfer credit hours from UWF back to Pensacola State in order to graduate with the associate degree. A reverse transfer agreement will, therefore, improve our graduation rates.

At least initially, completion and retention rates will be weighed more heavily than job placement and wages.

That bothered some board members, who noted that Gov. Rick Scott and other state officials have pushed for colleges and universities to put more emphasis on the prospects of those with college degrees to find work.

Christopher Mullin, executive vice chancellor of the Division of Florida Colleges, said the state isn't able to get the information it needs from some states where students are likely to move.

Both of Florida's closest neighbors — Alabama and Georgia — aren't part of a multistate agreement that would allow Florida to get accurate information about jobs and wages, Mullin said.

"What we have is a number of colleges along the Interstate 10 corridor whose students might live or work right across the border. ... We're working really hard to get Georgia and Alabama to join in as well, where we won't have to worry about this issue moving forward," Mullin said.

Board Chairwoman Marva Johnson said the department should try to find other routes to get the information it needs regardless of what happens with the data-sharing agreement.

"I don't want to have to wait on them to get to 50 (states)," she said. "I really would love for us to try to find a way to get, maybe it won't be perfect data, but as close as we can to the best data, so that we can properly value job placement and wages in the metric system."

Meanwhile, board member Rebecca Lipsey said she was disappointed that lawmakers set aside a recommendation from Education Commissioner Pam Stewart that the performance formula include a measurement focused specifically on students who received federal need-based financial aid.

In all, lawmakers dropped five metrics that Stewart had proposed.

"By removing that, we're no longer, when thinking about performance funding for our college system, finding a way to incentivize and reward colleges for specifically ensuring that their low-income students are having great outcomes," Lipsey said.

According to information provided to the board, seven colleges will receive their existing funding back and a higher share of the new money: Santa Fe College; Valencia College; Tallahassee Community College; Lake-Sumter State College; Gulf Coast State College; State College of Florida, Manatee-Sarasota; and Florida SouthWestern State College.

The other 16 colleges will receive their existing funding and some performance funding, though not as much as the seven highest-scoring schools.

Editor Shannon Nickinson contributed to this report.

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