America's Public HBCUs: A Four State Comparison of Institutional Capacity and State Funding Priorities

Abstract

conTemPoRaRy conTexTThe recession of 2008 had a devastating impact on higher education across the United States, but HBCUs were particularly hard hit.Because Minor completed his report on the eve of the recession, the enrollment and funding trends he detailed were based on pre-recession data.Given many states' diminished post-recession coffers, the "climate of accountability and efficiency" (28) noted by Minor has become a dominant theme in contemporary higher education finance.Along these lines, many state policymakers are floating the idea of allocating funding based on performance targets, such as degree completion rates and other outcomes.Although the efficient distribution of funding and quantifiable evidence of its use is laudable, policymakers and higher education leaders must recognize that a substantial number of HBCU students are from lowincome families and mostly first-generation students.Such students are often unlikely to graduate, regardless of the institution they attend (Mercer and Stedman, 2008).A categorical application of performance funding could harm HBCU students by limiting state funding to their institutions.For decades, reformers have viewed performance funding as a necessary corrective to the deeply flawed enrollment-based funding formulas that have been omnipresent.More recent reforms to performance funding have included the use of metrics that measure improvement and change in ways that matter differently for different institutions.Such funding reforms may represent a more equitable approach toward HBCUs.