Governor’s office proposes revamp of higher ed funding plan

By Jonathan McFadden
mcfaddenj@mytjnow.com

Mere months before any definitive decisions about giving more or less money to South Carolina universities and colleges have come through the pipeline, state leaders have proven that adopting a model for higher education funding is a consistently elusive work-in-progress.

Following the release of Gov. Nikki Haley’s budget for the fiscal year ahead, members of the governor’s staff have met with university presidents one-on-one to mull over the newly proposed method for bestowing funds to the state’s universities and colleges.

Vexed by a system that awarded funds to schools “without rhyme or reason,” Haley disclosed her plan to allocate money to colleges and universities on a performance model that judged higher ed institutions on four criteria during an October visit to Winthrop.

Well, four months later, the old criteria are out and four new ones have taken its place.

During his meeting with the Board of Trustees last Wednesday, President Anthony DiGiorgio unveiled the fruits of his own “healthy, robust” 30-minute meeting with members of Haley’s staff.

Staff members asked DiGiorgio, and likewise other presidents, what his reactions were to new standards in the accountability-based funding model, some of which DiGiorgio admitted weren’t too much different than the other four “measurables” Haley pushed before. They include: 

Completion: Considers each university’s six-year graduation rate and retention rate for returning freshmen

Affordability & Access: Examines in-state undergraduate tuition and fees and the average graduate debt load as measures. Though DiGiorgio understands the reasons for these two criteria, he said that access was too loosely defined and the view too limited because it didn’t include in-state/out-state comparisons or university population. 

Educational quality: Deals with faculty/undergraduate ratio, number of faculty with “terminal” degrees and other “input” measures, that have nothing to do with “output,” DiGiorgio said. Terminal degrees are the highest degrees attainable in a certain field of study.

Economic development: Each university is required to provide service to the state by working with local governments in their respective regions, such as the College Town Action Plan.

Other changes in the new proposal include giving colleges and universities a less aggressive six-year phase-in period so they can have necessary time to adapt to any changes. Before, Haley’s staff proposed a three-year phase-in process for the accountability funding model. 

Within the new time frame, colleges would not receive any money during the first year (dubbed a “measurement year”) but slowly begin to receive a various percentage of funds from years two through six, DiGiorgio said.

“I think it’s a reasonable paradigm” and enough time for the economy to catch up, he said. 

DiGiorgio gave his own review, saying state leaders should consider what SACS (Southern Association of Colleges & Schools) has to say about state colleges and universities. SACS officially re-accredited Winthrop in December. The president also suggested that state leaders look at each university’s academic departments and identify whether they meet their program objectives, while also viewing results from the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE), which surveys freshmen and senior students to gauge their level of learning, engagement and student interaction with faculty.

Giving a brief history lesson on the way higher education has been funded in the past, DiGiorgio maintained “there needs to be some feasible, relatively predictable, valid way of allocating resources to institutions.”