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FAU to lose $1.4M under new performance model

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Ouch.

From the Tampa Bay Times:

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State university system Chancellor Marshall Criser III is making the rounds at the Capitol this week, including a presentation at today’s Senate Education Committee meeting to talk about performance funding.

The 12-university system has asked the Legislature to allocation $50 million in new money to reward schools for meeting various goals…Whetever the final amount, it will be divided among the universities using 10 different criteria worth a maximum of 50 points. Universities must earn at least 26 people to get any new funding. Those that earn 25 point or less risk losing 1 percent of their 2014-2015 base funding; That money would then be redistributed to the other high-scoring schools.



The highest-scoring and highest-earning school, according to the projections, is the University of Florida, which would receive $11.7 million for its 42 points



The three low-performing schools would all lose varying amounts of money, based on calculating 1 percent of their normal allocation from the state. FAU would be docked $1.4 million, UWF would lose $675,595 and New College would be $172,720 poorer.



Schools earn points for achieving set goals or showing improvement, whichever is higher. Here are the 10 criteria:

1. percent of bachelor's degree graduates employed or continuing their education

2. Average wages of employed bachelor degree graduates

3. Cost to university per undergraduate degree

4. Six-year graduation rate

5. Academic progress rate (second-year retention with GPA above 2.0)

6. Bachelor's degrees Awarded in areas of strategic emphasis (includes science, technology, engineering and math)

7. Percent of undergraduates with a Pell grant (university access rate)

8a. Graduate Degrees Awarded in areas of strategic emphasis (includes STEM)

8b. For New College only since it doesn't have graduate programs: Freshman in top 10 percent of graduating high school class

9. Board of Governors choice for each school

10. Board of Trustees choice for each school


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Our lowest scores are two zeroes for

4. Six-year graduation rate
5. Academic progress rate (second-year retention with GPA above 2.0)

Something's GOT to change and this should hopefully be the kick we need to make it a reality. Guess we know what the new Prez' first challenge will be!
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I don't think it's purely about our student population mix either. FIU, USF and UCF all deal with plenty of part-time/non-traditional students as well.

Maybe we're investing entirely too much money in administrators and not enough in teachers, meaning we can't offer enough classes so people can graduate in time. I know I had to take some pretty weird stuff near the end just to have something.

This insightful article from the UP talks about the lack of professors:

Over the last ten years, as the amount of FAU administrators employed rose from 642 to more than 950 employed last fall, the amount of faculty employed peaked at 1,090 and then started its descent to 1,023 (see sidebar).



Last fall, FSU employed 384 administrators to oversee 1,405 faculty members, according to the university’s Office of Institutional Research. And over the last ten years at FSU, the student body has increased from 37,328 to 41.301.
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owl2Doc said

Maybe we're investing entirely too much money in administrators and not enough in teachers, meaning we can't offer enough classes so people can graduate in time. I know I had to take some pretty weird stuff near the end just to have something.

I had to get a late add for a class that won't be offered again before I graduate. Also, I need to take Quantitative Methods and the professor who taught that class just retired. While I'm assured by the department that there'll be teacher for the course for the fall, the position is vacant so far.

FAU needs more teachers.
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How do they measure salary of graduates? No one ever asked me what I make , or what my occupation is lol, that seems like a highly guesstimated figure
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I know money gets attention and the goal is to make schools improve. Taking away money makes it that much harder to achieve that goal.

This evidently has been an issue for a while. Was it swept under the rug or was it hard to deal with over the last few years because of the huge budget cuts?

$1.4m is not small change. That is another budget cut or find a way to replace it like increase enrollment in programs that more faculty would not need to be hired.



owl2Doc said

I don't think it's purely about our student population mix either. FIU, USF and UCF all deal with plenty of part-time/non-traditional students as well.
The difference between FIU, UCF, USF and FAU is the first three are in large metropolitan areas. Large populations. In my opinion, commuter campuses are most successful in large cities. FIU is drawing higher GPAs and SAT scores than we are because of larger population to draw from not to mention their larger enrollment. Thats why I am so much in favor of the "traditional campus" for FAU because a commuter university doesn't belong in a small city.  We are/were a second choice when turned down by UF and FSU then to lose them to transfer after a semester or two.

I'm really not sure about the avg wage stat. If I had stayed in South Florida and found a job there, I could have made 20-25% more than I made in North Florida (Jacksonville) where I went to work after graduating in 1980. I don't know if there is a gap like that now. For that reason I'm not sure how accurate that stat can be in evaluating the success of graduates.

FAU - THE REAL SLEEPING GIANT
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OwlBroker said

How do they measure salary of graduates? No one ever asked me what I make , or what my occupation is lol, that seems like a highly guesstimated figure
Posted On: Feb 12th 2014, 10:28 PM #327966

From what I have read when delving into this topic, starting salaries based on choice of industry are rooted upon conglomerate figures for the most part - irrespective of the institution issuing the degree.

However, some schools actually track their upper echelon program's graduate's financial matters; as they have a stake in continuing to recruit the best future program candidates.
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illinoisowl said

I know money gets attention and the goal is to make schools improve. Taking away money makes it that much harder to achieve that goal.

You're exactly right. In order to offset $1.4M, FAU has traditionally done one of two things:

  1. Charged more money for tuition and fees to make up the difference
  2. Cut faculty and/or placed a hiring freeze on new faculty

What does Criser think is going to happen? We're just going to magically get better with less money?

Don't get me wrong, I fully support improving the 6 year graduation rate because it's abysmal. But you'd think they'd send consultants to figure out how we're mismanaging our money instead - wouldn't that be more productive?

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Just cutting funds WILL NOT improve conditions, especially in the near term, just as throwing more money at FAU who then hire more admins won't help either.
Increasing funding WITH stipulations such as a better (lower) admin/faculty ratio, or a better (lower) student/faculty ratio would help in both short and long term results IMHO.
I agree the first two thing that WILL happen is a tuition INCREASE and a faculty DECREASE! At least based on past history, but let's see how Dr. Kelly handles this.
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The objective of cutting funds is to fine or penalize the university. It's supposed to make FAU sit up and take notice and start improving to avoid getting more funding cut. It seems there should be a better way to send the message other than making more difficult to improve with less funding. But money talks and loudly.
Maybe FAU should consider stopping enrollment growth or shrink a little to better select students that can complete their degree in less than 6 years.

FAU - THE REAL SLEEPING GIANT
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Sounds like we need to focus on the DEGREE SEEKING student, not so much the adult night school types. Make sure we can get them on a REALISTIC course to graduate in four years, five years MAX!
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