I’m still thinking about the Business Leaders for Michigan report released last week that analyzes what “we” can do to assist Michigan community colleges. The report raises some serious questions – not about the state of Michigan’s community colleges – but rather about the perspective this report brings to the table.
For example, one of the “immediate steps” the group suggests is the creation of a credit transfer system of general education credits from community colleges to four-year universities.
Done!
It’s called the Michigan Transfer Agreement. Michigan’s public higher education institutions have used it since 2014. According to the Michigan Transfer Network, the MTA “…allows students to transfer 30 credit hours of general education coursework from a community college to a 4-year institution.”
A far more dangerous recommendation is this one: Link state funding to outcomes and equity. I have written about this in the context of states that have already adopted outcome-based funding for community colleges. This recommendation – if the legislature adopts it – would be a disaster for certain Michigan community colleges. On one hand, you could describe this approach as financially rewarding institutions that do well. But just as easily (and accurately), you could describe this approach as punishing those institutions whose students perform poorly.
At first blush, rewarding good performance seems like it makes sense, right? Reward what works! “Arbeit macht frei!” .
But that ultimately rewards community colleges that already enjoy significant advantages. Community colleges like Oakland, Macomb, Washtenaw, and Grand Rapids would be fine under this approach. State funding is a comparatively small fraction of their annual budget and they collect a lot in property taxes. But community colleges like Wayne County Community College District, Mott Community College, Jackson College, Kellogg Community College, and Mid Michigan College would lose funding.
Michigan community colleges need more funding, not less
Performance based funding is yet another way to take funds away from schools that serve high minority and rural populations and transfer it to suburban schools with relatively few minority students. In other words, the schools that most need extra funding are the ones who would be punished under this approach.
Rather than rushing to emulate the Texas community college funding approach – where this system has been mandated but not implemented – let’s hold off on this for a minute and see what happens to funding for the colleges in Texas that serve mostly minority students.
If BLM really wants to help low-performing community colleges, try increasing funding for schools like Jackson College, whose voters have never given it a funding increase over its charter millage. Try assisting Kellogg Community College, which currently enrolls just one-third of the students it did in 2010. How about providing funding for occupational programs that train students for high-wage, high-demand jobs?
Or here’s an idea for increasing operational funding for community colleges: bar them from using their operational dollars to guarantee bond issues for capital projects. Require Michigan community colleges to seek voter approval to issue bonds to pay for capital projects. Or restrict their ability to divert operational dollars to projects that don’t primarily benefit students – like WCC’s Health and Fitness Center.
There are lots of ways to support Michigan community colleges. Performance based funding is not one of them.
Photo Credit: Darren Barefoot , via Flickr
