(from Inside Higher Ed):

By Martha Snyder

A recent Inside Higher Ed article about the analysis of state performance funding formulas by Seton Hall University researchers Robert Kelchen and Luke Stedrak might unfairly lead readers to believe that such formulas are driving public colleges and universities to intentionally enroll more students from high-income families, displacing much less well-off students. It would be cause for concern if institutions were intentionally responding to performance-based funding policies by shifting their admissions policies in ways that make it harder for students who are eligible to receive Pell Grants to go to college.

Kelchen and Stedrak’s study raises this possibility, but even they acknowledge the data fall woefully short of supporting such a conclusion. These actions would, in fact, be contrary to the policy intent of more recent and thoughtfully designed outcomes-based funding models pursued in states such as Ohio and Tennessee. These formulas were adopted to signal to colleges and universities that increases in attainment that lead to a better-educated society necessarily come from doing a much better job of serving and graduating all students, especially students of color and students from low-income families.

Unfortunately, Kelchen’s study has significant limitations, as has been the case with previous studies of performance-based funding. Most notably, as acknowledged by Kelchen and Stedrak, these studies lump together a wide variety of approaches to performance-based funding, some adopted decades ago, which address a number of challenges not limited to the country’s dire need to increase educational attainment. Such a one-size-fits-all approach fails to give adequate attention to the fact that how funding policies are designed and implemented actually matters. CONTINUE READING HERE