There are few public policy goals that rank higher in Virginia than that of increasing citizens' educational achievement levels. The state government's emphasis on this objective was revealed in its decision to enact the Higher Education Opportunity Act of 2011, which stipulates that the commonwealth's network of colleges and universities should confer an additional 100,000 degrees during the next 15 years.
With this in mind, the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia issued recommendations earlier this week that call for the state government to begin offering financial incentives to public colleges and universities that increase their enrollment of in-state students. This is a smarter approach than simply giving colleges and universities more money with no strings attached, but the incentive structure could be improved further by factoring in completion times and graduation rates when distributing money to institutions.
The council's idea of creating an $80 million incentive fund that would be separate from base funding is a good way to ensure universities continue to aim toward expanding access, which should be among their primary goals. Without tying these funds specifically to enrollment, universities might be tempted to invest the additional appropriations in projects that are appealing to existing students or alumni but are not as connected to their core mission of providing education services to as wide a range of individuals as possible.
Alternatively, universities might simply use unrestricted funds to boost per-student spending levels since this is a critical component of how institutions are ranked according to methodologies employed by groups such as U.S. News & World Report. In doing so, however, universities would be neglecting their responsibility to make higher education accessible to a broad swath of society at a time when a college degree is becoming increasingly necessary for career advancement and economic security.
Therefore, the state government should give serious consideration to the council's proposal to make some additional higher education funding contingent on enrollment expansions. Nevertheless, this proposal is not in itself sufficient to accomplish the commonwealth's goal of increasing the number of Virginians with college degrees. What is needed to make that vision a reality is a system of incentives that not only provides additional money to colleges and universities that expand their enrollment, but also rewards those who graduate their students on time. After all, for the commonwealth to confer additional degrees it is not enough merely to send more individuals to college. Rather, it must graduate those students and do so in a timely manner so that they do not become a drain on their universities' resources.
Fortunately, the council also recommended expanding the state's financial aid programs, which will indirectly promote the goal of on-time graduation. By providing additional financial assistance to middle-income families, the commonwealth would reduce the need for students to take part-time jobs to pay their way through college. This, in turn, would enable many of them to graduate on time since they could take full credit loads or avoid taking semesters off.
To further promote on-time graduation, the commonwealth should consider linking its incentive funding to degree completion time. Those universities that consistently graduate their students in three or four years could be rewarded with bonus money on top of the incentive funding they would already receive for enrolling additional students. This additional spending could be paid for by gradually reducing incentive payouts to those universities that do a poor job of graduating their students on time. Although this system would have to be carefully structured to avoid penalizing schools that enroll large numbers of low- to lower-middle income students who work part-time and consequently may need additional time to graduate, it would ensure that taxpayer funds only go toward promoting additional enrollment at the schools that actually graduate their students in a timely manner.
Ultimately, what the council has proposed is a good first step toward reaching the higher education objectives established by the state government. For reform to be successful, though, it must take into account the complex variety of factors related to broader economic conditions, reputation building and statehouse budgeting that are influencing the decisions of both individuals and institutions involved in higher education.
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