Performance-based funding: Perspectives of community college leaders’ in Texas on its influence on student success initiatives

ABSTRACT The Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board reported that in 2010, community and technical colleges would receive 90% of their funding based on enrollment and the other 10% of formula funding based on student success points that students achieve after completing each of the performance-based funding (PBF) milestones. The U.S. Government Accountability Office reported that state funding for community colleges had declined by 12% across the United States. In addition to reduced funding, community colleges were having to deal with the new PBF formula implemented by the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board. The problem was that states have imposed performance-based funding on all their public higher education institutions; however, the literature does not provide much evidence that performance-based funding had improved student success outcomes. The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore community college leaders’ perceptions on PBF and its influence on how institutions’ are responding to improving student success in Texas community colleges (i.e., student retention and graduation rates). This study will advance the knowledge on the input from different Texas public community colleges leaders’ perspectives on how their institutions were responding to the PBF mandate. This case study explored and described the different influences PBF had on student success and how community college leaders responded to the implementation of the PBF mandate. The theoretical framework of this study was the resource dependency theory. This collective case study was directed by four research questions. The setting for this study were two state-supported community college districts and two state-supported community colleges located in Texas. They consisted of two districts: (a) District A was located in South Texas and (b) District B was located in Central Texas, along with two community colleges: (a) Community College A was located in West Texas and (b) Community College B was located in the Texas Panhandle. The study participants were 15 senior leaders from the four study institutions: (a) one chancellor, (b) three presidents, (c) two vice chancellors, (d) eight vice presidents, and (e) one senior budget officer. The phenomenological approach consisted of the data collection and analysis protocol for this study. Trustworthiness was ensured through the consistency and stability of the interview questions.

Name thesis:degree_name

Doctor of Education

Level thesis:degree_level

Doctoral

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Higher Education

Grantor

Texas Tech University

Year dc:date.issued

2017

Author dc:creator

• Sanders, Kimberly Evette

Chair dc:contributor.committeechair

• Louis, Dave A.

Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember

• Jones, Stephanie J.
• Wood, Donald S.

• Performance based funding
• Student success
• Community college leaders perspectives

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/2346/73186

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:ttu-ir.tdl.org:2346/73186