UF demonstrates excellence under Board of Governors’ performance funding model

March 18, 2015

The University of Florida may be poised for new state funding this year after demonstrating excellence or improvement in measures from graduation rates to faculty awards.

The Board of Governors, which oversees the State University System, is scheduled to discuss the achievement Thursday at 8:40 a.m. and consider the final results Thursday afternoon. Live streaming and the agenda for the meeting are available through the Board’s website. Under a performance-based funding model implemented by the board, universities are rewarded based on their performance on 10 metrics critical to students, families and taxpayers – from student retention to cost-per-degree. UF earned 44 points on the board’s 50-point scale, the highest score in the system.

“Performance funding signifies a new era for our State University System, one that prioritizes university accountability and ever-growing quality and achievement,” Board of Governors Chair Mori Hosseini said. “I commend UF for its excellent performance under the model.”

“The State University System’s responsibility is to offer a product for our students that is high-quality, affordable and puts graduates on the path to success,” Board of Governors’ Vice Chair Tom Kuntz said. “The headline writes itself: Performance funding works.”

“Performance funding enables UF to continue providing the quality programs and hiring the exceptional faculty that set our students on a path of success,” UF President Kent Fuchs said. “Demonstrated performance excellence provides quantitative evidence that the students emerging from UF are prepared and successful.”

UF’s gains from 2011-2012 to 2012-2013 include:

• More students are graduating with bachelor’s degrees in high-wage, high-demand areas, up 3 percent from 52 to 55 percent. The percentage of graduate degrees in high-wage, high-demand areas is also up from 69 to 70 percent.
• Efforts to prepare students for successful careers are working: The number of students employed full time or continuing their education one year after graduation climbed from 67 percent to 72 percent.
• Median wages for recent graduates are up 5 percent, among the highest jumps in the system.
• UF has improved its six-year graduation rate, already the highest in the system, from 86 to 87 percent.
• Faculty earned 20 prominent awards, up from 18. The metric is based on the number of awards that faculty have earned in the arts, humanities, science, engineering and health fields as reported in the annual “Top American Research Universities” report.