In her self-evaluation for 2015-2016, Mangum suggested that the
enrollment decline was needed in order to make sure FAMU has students who can
help it do well on the performance metrics of the Florida Board of Governors
(BOG).
“Moving to a culture focused on student success and college
readiness rather than the size of enrollment was an important change and
undertaking that reinforces and demonstrates recognition of state and national
trends for accountability,” Mangum wrote. “Significant progress was made as
evidenced by our improvement scores on the [State University System of Florida]
established performance metrics and movement into the top eight of the
performance funding ranking.”
But FAMU Trustee Matt Carter, who helped set up the BOG’s
performance metrics system while he was a member of that board, isn’t accepting
excuses for the continuing enrollment decline.
Enrollments at historically black colleges and universities
(HBCUs) all across the nation were hurt by overhaul of the federal financial
aid program in 2011. But North Carolina A&T University (NCA&T) Chancellor
Harold Martin reversed his university’s enrollment decline with strong classes of
freshmen students. The freshman, first-time student classes that he enrolled in
Fall 2014 and Fall 2015 both had 3.28 average GPAs in high school.
Delaware State University didn’t have an enrollment decline
after immediately after 2011. President Harry Williams, who was appointed to
lead the school in 2009, has been getting the job done in the area of
recruiting freshmen with solid GPAs. He enrolled a freshman class with a 3.0 average GPA in Fall 2013 and another freshman class with a 3.08 average GPA in Fall 2014.
“That makes the record enrollment particularly satisfying,”
Williams said in a 2014 press release. “As the student population continues to
increase, the academic quality of our new freshmen continues to rise as well.”
DSU’s enrollment slipped from 4,644 in Fall 2014 to 4,560 in
Fall 2015. The average GPA for the latest freshman class hasn’t been posted on
its official website.
Virginia State announced that it will finally reverse its
fall enrollment decline with a projected five percent increase for Fall 2016. It
hasn’t posted the average GPA for its incoming freshman class.
Bethune-Cookman University reversed its enrollment decline in Fall 2013 with 3,787 students and a 2.82 average freshman GPA. Enrollment went up to 4,045 in Fall 2014 with a 2.91 average freshman GPA. It slipped to 3,831 in Fall 2015 with a 2.94 average freshman GPA.
FAMU trustees had been told as of the June 9 committee meetings
that performance funds would be used to cover the projected $10M loss in
tuition and fees due to an expected decline in enrollment for 2016-2017.
“The good news is that FAMU received performance funding
this year, the bad news is a major portion of those performance dollars will be
used to pay for the holes in the budget from the loss of enrollment,” Carter
wrote in his evaluation of Mangum.
Most of the “marks of excellence” that FAMU received on the
Florida Board of Governors performance-funding metrics for the 2014-2015 year were actually based on
data or work from the 2013-2014 year. Mangum began her contract on April 1, 2014 with about
four months to go before the end of the fiscal year on June 30, 2014. None of the excellence areas or
improvement areas required a decline in enrollment to accomplish.
FAMU received marks of excellence in the following
categories:
• Percent of
graduates employed full-time or continuing their education [2013-2014]
• Bachelor’s
degrees awarded within programs of strategic emphasis (includes STEM) [Down 1.5
percent in 2014-2015 under Mangum]
• University access
rate (percent of undergraduates with a Pell Grant) [Fall 2014 students
recruited in 2013-2014 or retained from that year]
• Percent of
funding from external sources (research and development expenditures)
[2013-2014]
FAMU received improvement ratings in the following areas:
• Median wages of bachelor’s
graduates employed full-time in Florida [2013-2014]
• Academic progress
rate (second-year retention with GPA above 2.0)
• Graduate degrees
awarded within programs of strategic emphasis
Read the Florida Board of Governors summary report on the
performance-funding metrics results here.