If some of the state money colleges and universities in Rhode Island receive were tied to student graduation goals, would the schools become more effective in producing the kinds of graduates businesses say they need??That’s part of the rationale for state legislation that would by fiscal 2018 tie a portion of state funds to performance goals for the Community College of Rhode Island, Rhode Island College and University of Rhode Island.
Introduced in the Senate by President M. Teresa Paiva Weed, D-Newport, and in the House by Rep. Joseph M. McNamara, D-Warwick, the proposal would track four different measures for each institution. Specific numeric goals would be set by the college presidents and the state’s commissioner of post-secondary education.
For CCRI, the proposal would record metrics including: associate degrees awarded to first-time, full-time students within two- and three-year time frames, as well as incremental milestones for part-time students. In addition, the bill would track certificates earned by students, with weights awarded to increase “high-demand, high-wage field” certificates.
At RIC and URI, the metrics include the number and percentage of bachelor’s degrees awarded to first-time, full-time students within four and six years, and the number of degrees tied to Rhode Island’s high-demand fields.
The legislation has created concerns among faculty and staff at CCRI. The school plans to hold a series of “town meeting” style forums, beginning this month, on the proposal.
CCRI President Ray M. Di Pasquale is open to performance-based funding, as long as it measures the right goals.
For all of the schools, the money used as a performance incentive would be the amount of its state budget increase above the baseline year of fiscal 2016. If a school did not meet its metrics, the institution would still receive the funds, but it would be directed to efforts to improve performance, according to Paiva Weed.
She pointed out that one in 30 CCRI students completes an associate degree within two years, and only one-in-10 in three years. Performance-based funding, a trend in higher education for several years, has been adopted in some form by more than 30 states, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education.
“We want to make sure college education is affordable, and the degrees and certificates are useful in today’s economy,” Paiva Weed said.
At CCRI, which allows anyone in the state to enroll, Di Pasquale is concerned the measurements may not reflect its mission.
More than 70 percent of the students enrolled on its six campuses attend part time, many not necessarily by choice, according to Di Pasquale.
Students who transfer to four-year institutions before they earn an associate degree, for example, are not included in the community college’s graduation statistics. And yet by any standard, these transfers should be considered success stories, he said.
According to CCRI, 15 percent of 2,041 students who entered as first-time, full-time students in 2010, who were tracked for three years, transferred without graduating from the community college.
“It’s not a matter of afraid of being measured,” said Di Pasquale, but of making sure the metrics fit. •
