Performance Funding: Unpacking FAMU's 78 point score

Last week the FL Board of Governors (BOG) released the results of how Florida's 12 public universities did on its performance funding metric and how it planned to allocate $645 million in performance-related funds for the 2023-24 fiscal year.   
 
While we can all be proud of FAMU’s year-over-year improvement of 6 pts on the metrics with an overall all score of 78 out of 100 points.  If we were applying a letter grade, this would have been good enough for a C+ .  

The metric also highlighted a few areas where areas where FAMU needs to improve -- 4-year graduation rate, retention of students going into the second year with a greater than 2.0 gpa, graduate degrees in areas of strategic emphasis, and grad rate for Florida Community College Transfers.
 
FAMU’s four-year graduation rate for first-time-in-college ---currently at 28.4 percent--- improved by 1.4 points and earned the university two points out of a possible 10 points on the metrics. FAMU's current grad rate is still down from a high of 34.6 percent two years ago, likely a COVID decline.  
 
To add additional color and context, FAMU’s four-year graduation rate is the lowest in the system trailing Florida Poly, who had the next lowest rate, with 41 percent by 12.6 percentage points. The state university system average grad rate for the 2018-2022 freshman class was about 63 percent.  

Among HBCU peers, FAMU's four-year graduation rate is among the top 10 (the FLBOG doesn't consider this).

 
More context
Is FAMU’s four-year graduation that bad? No, not really.  
 
In comparison to its SUS peers, the numbers for FAMU look pretty bleak. 

However, while the raw numbers don’t lie, they can fib. 

They’re real but can be real shady too.
 
We’ve all heard the old saying, that “comparison is the thief of joy”, and that’s exactly what is happening when we compare ourselves to our SUS counterparts.   
 
Rather intentional or not, Florida’s performance funding metric doesn’t take into account that FAMU enrolls double the number of Pell grant recipients than its SUS peers. 

These are students who tend to come from the most impoverished school districts in our urban and rural neighborhoods and cities. 
 
FAMU students are:
·    Students with no one in their family to lean on for guidance in navigating college life.
·    Come from poor families who simply cannot afford the cost of higher education.
·    Typically have no relatives who attended college before, no one who’s walked the path before who are able to offer guidance and support.
·    Come from underfunded, under-resourced school districts that do the best with that they have, but not enough to ably prepare students for the rigors of pursuing a college degree. 
· Typically have to work 25 or more hours a week while attending college to make ends meet.
 
The high number of Pell students also contributes to FAMU lackluster performance on metric #5 -- Academic Progress Rate (2^nd Year Retention with GPA Above 2.0) – where we received just four out of a possible 10 points.  This past year FAMU retained 82.8 percent of its students heading into the sophomore year with a better 2.0 GPA.  This was a 1.4 percent decline from the previous year.
 
“When looking at these numbers, what we found was what we expected,” says Johnny Taylor, former President and CEO of the Thurgood Marshall College Fund, “the biggest retention determinate for most HBCUs is financial. A lot of students have challenges trying to meet the economic requirements of attendance. Many drop out for a semester or longer to obtain the dollars necessary to continue.”
 

Apples to oranges comparison
The stunning contrast between the number of Pell grant recipients enrolled at FAMU verses Florida's other public universities invites an apples to oranges comparison in terms of graduation rates and academic outcomes.  Most educational experts know, including the BOG, that graduating students from low wealth families is difficult.  Even elite private colleges struggle to graduate less than 50 percent of the poor students they admit.    

Florida's heavy reliance on graduation and retention rates is flawed and disingenuous without providing additional resources to those universities that enroll the greatest number of Pell grant recipients.  

If Florida's educational, business, and political leaders believe that all Florida students, whether black or white deserve equal access to learning opportunities and the same learning outcomes, then they must prioritize addressing the inequitable funding gaps that compound academic achievement both at the local level and in public higher education.

 

If Florida leaders could pump an extra $50 million into New College of Florida which has an enrollment of 700 students (on a good day) and came in dead last on the performance metric this year, surely, they could provide FAMU with an additional $30 million in funding to provide scholarships and additional financial aid so students wouldn't have to work as much.  Doing this will create a level playing field and an environment where every student in Florida can succeed.

Doing this would have also helped FAMU improve on two additional metrics 8a (Graduate Degrees Awarded in Areas of Strategic Emphasis) and 9a (Three-Year Graduation Rate of FCS Transfer Students). FAMU improved 2.7 percent this year on metric 8a to 50 percent. On metric 9a FAMU saw 7 percent decline from the previous year, graduating just 61.6 percent of its Florida Community College transfers in three years (good enough for a top 5 finish in the SUS).

Had FAMU had done better on just two of these four metrics, the university would have likely finished among the top 5 in the system.