Ball State University President Jo Ann Gora speaks out against the state's performance-based funding formula, which has led to a recommendation that would mean BSU gets the largest funding drop of any institution in the state:
Appearing before the Indiana House Ways and Means Committee in Indianapolis, Gora criticized the Indiana Commission for Higher Education's formula, which includes graduation rates.
The commission compared the four-year graduation rates of students who entered BSU in the fall of 2003 to those who entered in the fall of 2005.
"It's almost as if you were at a baseball game and they decided the winner based not on what happened over the full nine innings but took a look at what happened between the sixth and seventh innings and said the winner is determined by the team that got more runs in the seventh inning than they got in the sixth inning," Gora said.
The net result of the commission's formula, which is only a recommendation, is that Ball State would lose $13.6 million in state funding during the upcoming two-year budget period, Gora said.
"And that is the largest loss of any institution (in the state)," she added.
I'm not sure about this, but I think Gora has a point that at least merits debate.
It makes a lot of sense to make graduation rates a part of the formula for judging high schools. A high school degree is the foundation for anything else a student pursues, whether it's college or place in the workforce. So how many students make it to graduation is matters a great deal.
But how fair is it to judge a university by something as narrow as "percentage of students who graduate on time in four years"? Why is four years "on time"? It took me eight years to get a degree, with an Army stint sandwiched between my IPFW and Ball State stints (love that GI Bill). A great many people pursue college piecemeal like that, and many more need or want only two years of study. Should the college be punished because of that?
