State Funding And College Completion Rates, What's The Connection?

Low completion rates and limited funding are two major problems facing higher education today

. Each of these issues influences the other; schools face low completion rates due to inadequate funding, and budget cuts cause graduation rates to fall. Larry Abramson of National Public Radio said that often, state governments reward schools with high enrollment, meaning the more students they have, the more money they receive. But, this theory ignores the fact that schools with the highest enrollment numbers do not necessarily have the most students graduating.

In an interview with Abramson, Teresa Lubbers, Commissioner for Higher Education in the state of Indiana said that high enrollment numbers are not the only thing that states want to see. "We want them [students] to leave with a credential," she said. "And so we're going to hold them [schools] accountable for producing those credentials."

The state of Indiana has proposed awarding more than $120 million dollars in additional funding to schools that are able to show improvement in their number of graduates produced. Lubbers said that she has been studying this idea, among others, to determine what types of incentives might prompt schools to improve. But to determine which schools might receive additional funding, several factors need to be considered, such as "on-time degrees [earned in four years], numbers of degrees, low-income degrees, and completed credit hours instead of enrolled credit hours."

Stan Jones, president of advocacy group Complete College America, thinks that college administrators are as much at fault for low completion rates as the students themselves. He said that "many college administrators need a change in attitude" because they feel that their job is simply to enroll as any students as possible. But, their involvement should not end there, and admissions counselors and administrators must take an active role in helping students achieve success.

Still, some schools argue against those who claim that state funding should be reflective of a school's graduation rate. Administrators at community colleges, for example, might say that they have high numbers of incoming and outgoing transfer students who never really "graduate" from a program at the school. But, on the other hand, advocates for higher education standards feel that "if we can spend billions on

by: Emily Sismour

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