From Theory to Practice: Implementing a State-Level Comparator-Based Funding Request and Allocation Model

Abstract

Community colleges have become among the most popular public higher education institutions in the nation to provide transfer, technical, developmental, business and industry, and community service education. Once considered the junior partner in the higher education enterprise (and on average receiving less state aid per student than their four-year counterparts), public community colleges now provide education to more than one-half of all citizens enrolled in postsecondary education. In the last decade, they have also become the core workforce development institutions of our nation. In many ways, these institutions have seen their role and mission evolve to the point that they now have goals that in many respects resemble those defined for land grant universities, established by the Morrill Act during the nineteenth century (Cohen & Brawer, 1996). Public community college leaders often lament that their institutions are low on the food chain when it comes to their state's funding priorities. This may be due partially to the lack of attention paid to cost-and-benefit analyses in funding requests. Policymakers around the nation will likely find themselves spending increasing amounts of time validating fair and equitable funding allocation criteria (Burke & Serban, 1998). As the squeeze on available state aid becomes increasingly oppressive, comparing costs outlays to the investment returns gained by states were they to invest more in community college education will become a higher priority for community college leaders. Yet barriers exist to promoting this position (Goodchild, Lovell, Hines, & Gill, 1997), among which include the following: (a) a noticeable inability of college leaders to demonstrate that community colleges are underfunded, especially in the context of their sizable contributions to life in America, (b) the lack of consensus among policymakers regarding efficient and equitable policy options that a state's higher education systems might choose in making resource requests and allocation decisions, (c) a dearth of consistent and timely research that explores, tests, and develops functional theories of state funding, and (d) the absence of ongoing examinations of how existing funding model practices affect postsecondary education institutions and the broader society they seek to serve. Literature Review As the new millennium begins, a variety of methods exist for requesting and allocating state funds to support the operation of public community colleges (Breneman & Taylor, 1996). Practitioners and scholars with an understanding of the theories, practices, and nuances in the finance and funding strategies employed by community college systems recognize that one approach to state aid does not fit all. Indeed, a plethora of forces unique to each state environment shape how funding requests and distributions are made. The rationales and methods that state policymakers use to allocate financial support for higher education can be nearly as important as the amount of that support (Richardson, Bracco, Callan, & Finney, 1999). More pointedly, an acceptable sense of fair play must exist in any funding allocation model. Moreover, the methods selected for allocating state funds typically must be viewed as affordable as well as politically acceptable to those approving and those receiving state financial support. Funding can be complex, highly politicized, and not prone to easy solutions (Kane, 1999). Although seldom discussed in a scholarly framework, politicizing of funding practices can be potent: The history of political parties in power and the relative pecking order of the various sectors consuming public funds, including higher education, play a major role in funding allocation decisions (McKeown & Alexander, 1986). Currently, in many states, the responsibility for establishing state funding allocations to public institutions of postsecondary education lies directly with each state's legislative bodies. …