How are state universities funded? In North Carolina, they receive appropriations based on the number of students enrolled. That creates an incentive to lure in as many students as possible without any concern for whether they actually learn anything.
As Ashlynn Warta writes for the Martin Center, the UNC Board of Governors is creating a new system that is meant to reward schools for the quality of their education and not just the numbers.
She writes, “In researching the current model, the UNC system enrollment funding model task force found a divide between how the system was being funded and its mission statement; there was no incentive for improving student performance. With the current model, as long as enrollment is increasing, funding will increase with it. The schools can inflate enrollments with no real regard for academic performance, and the money will still flow in. With the proposed model, institutions can have flat enrollment but still improve funding by improving student performance.”
But, she notes, the devil is in the details. School administrators will undoubtedly try to figure out how to game the new system, making it appear that they have increased educational quality to cash in under the new system.
Will things improve? The Martin Center will keep watching to see.