Cleveland Plain Dealer
A college proposal worth enacting: editorial
Saturday, December 08, 2012
By The Plain Dealer Editorial Board 

Ohio Gov. John Kasich's penchant for breaking the mold in higher education deserves applause once again. 

Fresh off his success having Ohio's public college presidents work collaboratively to divvy up limited construction funds, Kasich's prompting has again spurred a successful collaboration -- this time to make college graduation rates a more important factor in state funding decisions. 

The governor again asked E. Gordon Gee of Ohio State University to lead the collaboration. The result of this Ohio Higher Education Funding Commission is a promising proposal for four-year colleges -- an idea slated to become part of Kasich's biennial budget proposal in February -- and a pledge to develop a new funding formula for community colleges in the second year of the budget. 

The plan would tie half the approximately $600 million the state annually allots four-year institutions to how well those colleges did in graduating students over the three prior years. The other half would be tied to course-completion rates. 

Right now, about one-fifth of state funding is linked to graduation numbers and the other four-fifths to course completion… 

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