CentralJersey.com
by Ellen Shakespear, Special Writer
April 5, 2010
How can New Jersey public colleges and universities succeed under the pressure of declining revenue and rising demand? How do we measure success within institutions of higher education?
These questions were debated at Princeton University on Friday, during a forum titled "How to Fix a Broken System: Funding Public Higher Education and Making it More Productive." The event was hosted and sponsored by the university's Policy Research Institute for the Region and co-sponsored by the New Jersey Association of State Colleges and Universities.
More than 70 national and regional academics and practitioners discussed how to increase productivity in the higher education arena, as well as new models for funding. Though public higher education has long been viewed as an affordable path to a degree in New Jersey, years of shortchanging it to offset state revenue shortfalls has led many higher education insiders and observers to question the current funding model and its impact on productivity.
"How many people think that we have good metrics for evaluating productivity in our institutions of higher education?" Jane Wellman, a panel facilitator, asked attendees. "If anyone in this room raises their hand, please let us know what you mean."
Ms. Wellman, the executive director of the Delta Project on Postsecondary Education Costs, Productivity and Accountability, said evaluating productivity first required an institution of higher education to define "productivity" and "success."
"Should one look at enrollment, persistence, graduation rates?" she asked three panelists. "What does it mean to be more productive?" "When we talk about productivity, we need to have a very complex model of definition," panelist and Rutgers University Chancellor Steven Diner said.
He explained that the tendency within the field of higher education to measure success by graduation rates alone does not take into account the other goals of his institution such as strengthening a community, research, and educating economically disadvantaged students.
"If we educate large numbers of students from low-income backgrounds, isn't that productivity? Even if the graduation rates aren't as high?" Mr. Diner asked. "Research. How do you measure that? Does that enter into the question of productivity? What about service to the community? Nobody really notices we do that until we say we don't have any more money and can't do it anymore," Mr. Diner said.
Panelist R. Barbara Gitenstein, president of The College of New Jersey, said that when one measures the productivity of an institution, identifying the appropriate comparison group is necessary.
"What we do on my campus, we compare ourselves to our peers," Ms. Gitenstein said. "We should be challenging ourselves with our peers. Graduation rates are meaningless between differential institutions, but you can compare them amongst peer institutions."
Panelist John McGoldrick, a trustee at Montclair State University, suggested the simple financial model of productivity could be applied to productivity within higher education as well.
"What are your goals? You need to prioritize and weigh what your goals are so you can evaluate the metrics," Mr. McGoldrick said.
Ms. Wellman then asked the three panelists to discuss the best routes for increasing productivity. She offered five possible options: increasing public funding, increasing student tuition, spending existing resources more effectively, reducing the number of students who aren't academically prepared for college-level work, or enrolling a higher proportion of students in community colleges. "These are crummy choices, I know," said Ms. Wellman.
Ms. Gitenstein said an institution could not ask for the first option - to receive increased funding - until it could demonstrate that the institution could spend resources effectively.
Mr. Diner admitted that while increasing tuition was unpopular, a tuition-based income had let Rutgers more easily restructure its budget and finances because the income was more regular and dependable.
Panelists noted New Jersey has one of the most expensive higher education systems in the country. In 2008, New Jersey's public four-year institutions had the highest total of tuition, fees, room and board, $19,548.
"We know now that we need to define terms in ways that are appropriate to the institution," Ms. Wellman said. "At the end of the day, though, we're not going to get away from the fact that we need to have this conversation within our institutions continually."
Source: http://centraljersey.com/articles/2010/04/05/the_princeton_packet/news/doc4bba56ffd6cea485162520.prt