• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
Kentucky Center for Economic Policy

Kentucky Center for Economic Policy

   

  • About Us
  • Press Room
  • Donate

Research That Works for Kentucky

  • Topics
    • Budget & Tax
    • Criminal Justice
    • Economic Security
    • Education
    • Health Care
    • Jobs & The Economy
  • Types
    • News
    • Op-Ed
    • Research

   

  • About Us
  • Press Room
  • Donate

Copyright © 2022 KyPolicy Privacy Policy Terms & Conditions Sitemap

Analysis

Performance Funding for Higher Ed Already Beginning to Disadvantage Some Schools

Ashley Spalding | July 3, 2018

New higher education data showing the allocation of performance funds in 2019 to our public universities and community colleges underscores the concern that some institutions are disadvantaged in the performance funding models. Smaller schools serving students with greater economic challenges will receive few if any of these dollars in 2019.

Round after round of state budget cuts to higher education, including an approximately 6 percent reduction in 2019, have impacted all institutions, leading to fewer programs, faculty and staff as well as tuition increases. Though Kentucky’s 2017 performance funding law did not require any state funding to our public universities and community colleges to be conditional in 2019, the 2018-2020 state budget included performance funds to be distributed for 2019 ($24.2 million for universities and $6.8 million for community colleges). These resources will help mitigate the 6 percent base funding cuts for some institutions while leaving others behind.

More On Education: What Kentuckians Say About Student Loan Cancellation

Lawmakers could have chosen to cut institutions less across the board instead of making them compete for funding based on inequitable metrics. Kentucky’s performance funding formulas (one for universities and one for community colleges) include student success outcomes such as degree completion as well as metrics related to volume such as the number of student credit hours earned. While additional weights are provided for low-income and underrepresented minority students in the models, we have argued they do not fully account for the ways that economic challenges erect barriers to meeting these goals. In the 2019 competition, community colleges with particularly disadvantaged populations, such as in the state’s economically distressed coalfields, will receive no additional funds: Big Sandy, Hazard, Henderson, Madisonville, Maysville and Southeast community and technical colleges.

Among our public universities, Morehead and Kentucky State — which have the largest percentage of undergraduates receiving a Pell grant (federal need-based financial aid) — are the losers, receiving no additional funds. Murray also receives very little additional funding. The table below shows how the performance funding impacts each public university’s state funding in 2019.

The state budget for higher education didn’t create any real winners given all public institutions had their base funding cut, but it did create losers when it distributed some additional funds through the performance funding formulas. Schools serving smaller, lower-income communities receive fewer needed resources in 2019 to help students reach their goals.

FacebookTweetLinkedInEmail

Primary Sidebar

Get KyPolicy news updates in your inbox

Sign Up

Sidebar

Perspectives

For Kentuckians Facing Hunger, This Summer Brings a Triple Threat

Addressing Corporate Power Is Key to Tackling Inflation

Cancel Student Debt, and Recommit to Education as a Public Good

This Legislative Session Threatens to Lower the Quality of Life in the Commonwealth

House Tax Bill Would Wreck Kentucky’s Budget to Benefit the Wealthy

Other Education Items

iStock 1221479863 1

Analysis

What Kentuckians Say About Student Loan Cancellation

Group of children

Analysis

Charter School Funding Proposal Is Inefficient, Costly and Will Harm Public Education

Teacher Pay Has Fallen in Nearly Every KY County

Analysis

State Funding for Education Has Been Stagnant for Many Years, But the 2022-2024 Budget Presents a Unique Opportunity to Begin Reinvesting

Ky. Policy

Footer

Research that works for Kentucky

433 Chestnut Street, Berea, KY 40403

Phone: 859-756-4605

General information and inquiries: info@kypolicy.org

   

Help us make the facts free and accessible to everyone. That’s how Kentucky will thrive.

Donate

  • Topics
    • Budget & Tax
    • Criminal Justice
    • Economic Security
    • Education
    • Health Care
    • Jobs & The Economy
  • Work
    • News
    • Op-Ed
    • Research
  • About Us
  • Press Room
  • Contact

Get KyPolicy news updates in your inbox

Sign Up

Copyright © 2022 KyPolicy Privacy Policy Terms & Conditions Sitemap

made by P&P
Share this ArticleLike this article? Email it to a friend!

Email sent!