Performance Funding as Neoliberal Policy

Performance funding, a leading example of neoliberal policy making, involves funding institutions not on enrollments but on outcomes such as graduation. This article examines intended and unintended impacts of performance funding and obstacles to making it work effectively. It includes policy recommendations to help institutions better respond to performance funding

Popular But Unstable: Explaining Why State Performance Funding Systems in the United States Often Do Not Persist

Background/Context: Performance funding in higher education ties government funding to institutional performance on indicators such as retention, graduation, and job placement. Performance funding can also be found in state K-12 funding policies and higher education quality assurance programs abroad. One of the puzzles about higher education performance funding is that half of the slates establishing it later abandoned it. Purpose/Objective./Research Question/Focus of Study: This study examines the factors that have led many states to drop performance funding for higher education. Research Design: This qualitative case study contrasts the experiences of three states that dropped performance funding in whole or in part (Missouri, Washington, and Florida) and a fourth (Tennessee) that has retained it more than 30 years. Discussion: Our analysis is based on documentary records and extensive interviews with higher education officials, legislators and staff, governors and advisors, business leaders, minority group leaders, researchers, and outside consultants. Our findings concur with but also go beyond prior analyses of the demise of state performance funding systems. We concur that higher education opposition played a key role in this demise, stimulated by a perception of inadequate consultation with higher education institutions, use of performance indicators that institutions found invalid, high implementation costs to institutions, and erosion of campus autonomy. At the same time, our analysis turned up other causes of higher education opposition to performance funding that were not discovered by previous studies. A major cause of higher education opposition was the downturn in state finances in the early 2000s, which led institutions to focus on preserving their core slate funding and giving up performance funding. Higher education opposition was also provoked if performance funding took the form not of adding to existing state funding but instead holding back a portion of the state appropriation and requiring institutions to earn it back through improved performance. These findings agree and disagree with theories and findings in the research literatures on policy termination and program sustainability. Conclusions/Recommendations: If its advocates are to create a sustainable basis for state performance funding they must find ways to insulate its funding from the ups and downs of the state revenue cycle, better secure the support of public institutions, and expand its breadth of political support by reaching out, for example, to business and to social groups driven primarily by the values of educational equality rather than educational efficiency

Accounting for Higher Education Accountability: Political Origins of State Performance Funding for Higher Education

Background/Context: Performance funding finances public higher education institutions based on outcomes such as retention, course and degree completion, and job placement rather than inputs such as enrollments. One of the mysteries of state performance funding for higher education is that despite great interest in it for over 30 years, only half of all states have ever adopted it. Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study: This study examines the political forces that have driven the development of performance funding in some states but not others. To do this, the authors draw on theories of policy origins such as the advocacy coalition framework, the policy entrepreneurship perspective, and policy diffusion theory. Research Design: This study contrasts the experiences of six states that established performance funding for higher education (Florida, Illinois, Missouri, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Washington) and two that have not (California and Nevada). These states differ considerably in their performance funding programs, higher education governance arrangements, and political and socioeconomic characteristics. Data Collection and Analysis: Our study is qualitative, drawing on documentary records and extensive interviews with higher education officials, legislators and staff, governors and advisors, business leaders, and other actors. Findings and Results: Our study finds that many of the actors and motives cited by the prevailing perspective on the origins of performance funding did operate in the six states that have established performance funding, including state legislators (particularly Republicans), governors, and business people pursuing performance funding in the name of greater effectiveness and efficiency for higher education. However, the prevailing perspective misses the major role of state higher education coordinating boards and individual higher education institutions (particularly community colleges) that pursued performance funding to secure new funds in an era of greater tax resistance and criticism of higher education. Our findings further move beyond the prevailing explanation by examining how policy entrepreneurs mobilized support for performance funding by finding ideological common ground among different groups, identifying policies that those groups could support, and taking advantage of political openings to put performance funding onto the decision agenda of state elected officials. Conclusions and Recommendations: This examination of the origins of performance funding policies sheds light on factors that facilitate and frustrate the development of such policies. For example, our research highlights the important role of higher education opposition and the presence of certain political structures and political values in frustrating the development of performance funding