Performance (De-)Funding - Doug Lederman, Inside Higher Ed

Economic downturns are often the enemy of state higher education reforms, especially those that involve money. It's hard enough for state leaders to do things like reallocate funds to reward performance when times are good; when money is tight, the often fragile consensus necessary to make major changes tends to crumble. Which is why the announcement last week that Indiana's commissioner of higher education recommended distributing budget cuts to state colleges based in significant part on a set of performance measures was so extraordinary. The Indiana Commission for Higher Education's decision to disproportionately cut the budgets of some institutions because their per-student costs are higher and their completion rates are lower is consistent with the state's recently expanded performance funding system.