Funding colleges based on degree completion?

USA Today takes an interesting look at numerous attempts throughout the country to shift the way states provide funding for public colleges and universities.

As states grapple with budget challenges and making consequent cuts in higher ed, some states are experimenting with ways of basing funding on degrees completed (or some other desired outcome) rather than the more common calculation based on number of students enrolled at a school.

The intent is to move to a results-based system that rewards colleges for meeting certain goals such as graduating students in a timely manner, producing more degrees in certain fields, etc.

According to USA Today the results are mixed:

Ohio and Indiana are targeting degrees in science, technology, engineering and math.

Missouri's department of higher education has proposed a plan to finance schools based on how students in allied health and other fields fare on state licensing exams.

Washington state's board of community and technical colleges plans to reward schools when students cross certain hurdles, such as completing 15 credits and passing math, along the way toward earning a credential.

Some early adopters, such as Florida, have seen results. From 1997 to 2007, Florida's community-college completion rates shot up 43% while enrollments rose 18%.

Even so, of 26 states that enacted performance funding since 1979, about a dozen, including Illinois and South Carolina, have abandoned it, says researcher Kevin Dougherty of the Community College Research Center at Teachers College, Columbia University.

The Washington program mentioned in the article is the Student Achievement Initiative. It was adopted in 2006 and is aimed at helping colleges increase student success in one of the four Achievement measures:

• Building towards college level skills (basic skills gains, passing precollege writing or math)
• First year retention (earning 15 then 30 college level credits)
• Completing college level math (passing math courses required for either technical or academic associate degrees)
• Completions (degrees, certificates, apprenticeship training)

The program is still relatively young and samples of early analysis can be found here. Given Washington's own challenges in funding our higher ed system, this is an interesting new way of driving dollars to our public colleges.

It's certainly a trend to keep an eye on. As pointed out here:

President Obama set a national goal that the United States would have the highest percentage of postsecondary degree holders in the world by the year 2020. And the feds are looking to invest $2.5 billion into efforts to boost college completion rates. If we are going to hit those goals, we need to turn out significantly more college graduates.

With states experiencing mixed levels of success, we'll see how this new model plays out here in Washington.