Event Title

Concurrent Sessions - Featured Session - The Money Problem! Strategies for Finding Resources to Invest in Student Success

Presenter Information

Jane Wellman, Delta Cost Project

Location

Campus Center Lower Level, Room 164 - University of Massachusetts, Amherst

Event Website

http://www.umass.edu/studentsuccessconference/resources2012.php

Start Date

21-9-2012 10:00 AM

End Date

21-9-2012 11:00 AM

Description

One of the great barriers to increased student success – meaning not just degree completion but also high quality learning outcomes – lies in the negative funding trends affecting higher education. Across all institutions, prices (tuitions) are increasing even as costs (spending per student) are being cut. Student access and affordability are at risk and so is quality. Examples will be given of recent trends in revenues and spending and projections of where funding is likely to go in the future, which (no surprise) are likely to be more of the same. While more can and should be done to make the case for changes in state fiscal policy to put money back into higher education, we can’t wait for new revenues to solve the cost/price problem. Continuous attention to both cost management (reducing spending where possible) and cost effectiveness (putting new money into areas that pay off in quality and learning) will be needed more than ever. To do that, we will need to be very intentional about the relationship between spending and effectiveness. This will require more fiscal literacy from academic decision makers, and more academic literacy among budget officers. This session will discuss what that means in practical terms, using examples of ways to think about cost effectiveness from work on high impact practices, as well as ways to cut budgets that do the least harm to quality and access. The session will conclude with suggestions about near term strategies that can be effective at the institutional level, as well as those that need to be addressed in public policy by states and systems.

Comments

Jane Wellman is the founding director of the Delta Project on Postsecondary Costs, Productivity and accountability in Washington, DC. The Delta Project’s mission is to improve productivity in higher education through better targeting of resources to protect student access and the quality of student learning. Wellman is widely recognized for her work in public policy and higher education, with particular expertise in state fiscal policy; cost analysis; strategic planning; state and federal regulation of higher education; accountability metrics and performance reporting; and quality control including accreditation. In November 2010 she was named the Executive Director of the National Association of System Heads (NASH), a membership organization of CEOs of the major public multicampus college and university systems in the U.S. She is also a member of the Association of Governing Boards Consulting Services and serves on the board of the Association of American Colleges and Universities.

This document is currently not available here.

Share

COinS
 
Sep 21st, 10:00 AM Sep 21st, 11:00 AM

Concurrent Sessions - Featured Session - The Money Problem! Strategies for Finding Resources to Invest in Student Success

Campus Center Lower Level, Room 164 - University of Massachusetts, Amherst

One of the great barriers to increased student success – meaning not just degree completion but also high quality learning outcomes – lies in the negative funding trends affecting higher education. Across all institutions, prices (tuitions) are increasing even as costs (spending per student) are being cut. Student access and affordability are at risk and so is quality. Examples will be given of recent trends in revenues and spending and projections of where funding is likely to go in the future, which (no surprise) are likely to be more of the same. While more can and should be done to make the case for changes in state fiscal policy to put money back into higher education, we can’t wait for new revenues to solve the cost/price problem. Continuous attention to both cost management (reducing spending where possible) and cost effectiveness (putting new money into areas that pay off in quality and learning) will be needed more than ever. To do that, we will need to be very intentional about the relationship between spending and effectiveness. This will require more fiscal literacy from academic decision makers, and more academic literacy among budget officers. This session will discuss what that means in practical terms, using examples of ways to think about cost effectiveness from work on high impact practices, as well as ways to cut budgets that do the least harm to quality and access. The session will conclude with suggestions about near term strategies that can be effective at the institutional level, as well as those that need to be addressed in public policy by states and systems.

https://scholarworks.umass.edu/studentsuccess/2012/Schedule/3