Audio clip
Andy Berke
State and university officials hashed over plans Thursday to change the funding model for state higher education.
In a closed-door meeting in Nashville, everything from giving the Tennessee Higher Education Commission more teeth to police university performance to offering incentives to faculty and staff for improving standards was discussed, officials said.
“I think there is widespread agreement on increasing incentives,” said state Sen. Andy Berke, D-Chattanooga, a member of the group discussing higher education reform. “But there is always concern about maintaining (student) access and that the quality of the degree remains high.”
Sen. Berke, a member of the Senate Education Committee, said 10 legislators were present at Thursday’s meeting, along with the governor and chairmen of boards the University of Tennessee and the Tennessee Board of Regents.
A little more than 5 percent of college and university state support is based on their performance in areas such as graduation rates and graduation of specific types of majors. Legislators and Gov. Phil Bredesen are pushing for the percentage of incentive-based funding to be significantly larger and more tied to graduation rates.
“People work for incentives,” Sen. Berke said. “Right now we give money based on how many people are in school 14 days into the semester. Institutions have learned that is what the state wants. We need to tell them that what we want is higher graduation rates.”
The Tennessee Higher Education Commission, which had representatives at Thursday’s meeting, is researching potential changes to higher education’s current funding model. A formula review committee will present its results in January when the commission releases its new master plan, officials said.
The group that met today plans to research how new funding models will impact individual institutions and determine what expectations the state should have for each school, he said.
“If we are trying to raise the graduation rate at UTC, we shouldn’t necessarily judge it against the University of Tennessee in Knoxville,” said Sen. Berke. “We also understand that different demographics and different resources show different graduation outcome.”
Richard Brown, vice chancellor for finance and operations at UTC, said the current funding model makes institutions want to grow their enrollment without looking closely at quality.
This year, the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga received $47.7 million in state appropriations, or 43.8 percent of its budget, documents show.
“I think it is a new day in Tennessee in terms of accountability,” said Dr. Brown. “The goal here is to improve not only student access but student success — success being measured by graduation rates.
Dr. Brown said his only concern is that state officials ensure that new standards are equitable and fair.
“We will probably spend a lot of time improving our graduation and retention rates,” he said.
Joan Garrett McClane has been a staff writer for the Times Free Press since August 2007. Before becoming a general assignment writer for the paper, she wrote about business, higher education and the court systems. She grew up the oldest of five sisters near Birmingham, Ala., and graduated with a master's and bachelor's degrees in journalism from the University of Alabama. Before landing her first full-time job as a reporter at the Times Free Press, ...
Accountability is a good thing. Really. In terms of higher education, the ACT scores for Tennessee high schoolers reveal a great weakness: less than 20% of TN high school students meet the four benchmarks for college courses that the ACT measures (composition, algebra, social science and biology). And remember that a benchmark score is only an indicator that a student has a 50% shot at earning a B or a 75% shot at a C in those courses. Frankly, they don't even make projections for calculus, chemistry, physics, history or civics! Who is accountable for this? Many folks are, but colleges are not.
Some time back, TN public universities were required to drop the number of hours required for bachelor degrees to 120 (some fields like engineering were allowed to have 128---still a reduction) from 128-137 hrs. Did graduation rates change? I don't think so. The UT/TBR universities and community colleges are struggling to help larger numbers of students (some with the Hope Lottery Scholarship) while living with shrinking budgets. The fat in their budgets is long gone. Adjuncts and teaching assistants are widespread everywhere. Grade inflation is growing on campuses and artificial pressure on the learning process in the form of state mandates for graduate rates is coming! Look at Memphis K-3: no child will be held back! The education system may well be on the verge of collapse.
Acountability is great. It should start with parents and local school boards, followed by the State House and the Governor's Mansion. It should end with the students themselves! I will remain an optimist ;^)
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