With another looming cut in state funding, President Jo Ann Gora told the Indiana Senate Appropriations Committee on Thursday that Ball State won't be able to recover under the current performance-based funding model.
Ball State is facing about $1.6 million in appropriation cuts after the Indiana House passed the state budget Feb. 25. Including the proposed cuts, Ball State has lost about $77 million in state appropriations since fiscal year 2008-09, an amount that Ball State can’t sustain. The amount of funding Ball State receives can still change as it goes through the Indiana Senate and is sent to Gov. Mike Pence for approval.
“We have sustained cuts in the last two biennium and we are slated once again to sustain the largest percent and dollar cut [in the state],” Gora told the committee. “We can’t continue to provide a distinctive education for Hoosiers if we are continuously cut. … We need your help.”
The funding comes from recommendations based on a formula approved by the Indiana Commission for Higher Education that favor overall degree completion and on-time graduation. Performance-based funding will make up 6 percent of funding in 2014 and 7 percent in 2015.
Gora said the performance-based formula favors large and growing schools and punishes schools that are more selective. She said under the current formula, Ball State could raise its graduation rates by 5 percent and achieve only $2 million, but larger institutions with lower graduation rates could achieve more than $8 million with the same improvement.
“Which is why we will never be able to recover in this funding formula,” Gora said. “Never. And that is why this is such a challenge for us. Ball State has taken a different strategy.
“We have become increasingly selective which means we are not growing and we are not large.”
Including the proposed cuts, Ball State has lost about $77 million in state appropriations since fiscal year 2008-09.
Ball State’s four-year graduation rate in 2012-13 was 36.3 percent, which is 10 percent above the national average, Gora said.
She said the formula makes it difficult to improve its funding because of its higher graduation rates.
“Depending on where you are in terms of your graduation rate compared to your peers, raising it by 5 percent can either be very hard, if you are ahead of your peers as Ball State is,” she said. “Or maybe not so hard if you’re not ahead of your peers and it is an area you are just starting to focus on.”
Sen. Brent Waltz, a member on the Senate Appropriations Committee, asked Gora if Ball State’s increased selectivity and educational strategy means it should be compared more to private institutions.
“Is Ball State going down the right road from a financial perspective, not from the educational perspective, but from a financial perspective?” he said. “Are we doing the right thing by the taxpayers of the state or are some of these projects better left toward maybe some of the higher end private universities and colleges that Indiana and surrounding states would have?”
Gora said the financial perspective and the educational perspective are one in the same and trumpeted Ball State’s efficiency in saving money and its ability to provide career experience through immersive learning projects.
“When our students graduate, they don’t just have a transcript of grades, they have a résumé of experiences,” she said.
