Columbus Dispatch…
Incentive pay
Governor seeks to tie university support to performance
Monday September 24, 2012 6:08 AM 

Giving state funding to colleges based on their performance makes more sense than doling out money mainly based on the number of students they enroll. That’s the governor’s newest idea, and college leaders have been asked to come up with such a formula this fall. 

Early this year, Gov. John Kasich asked Ohio’s 37 public universities and colleges to agree on one statewide “wish list” for how to spend $350 million in state funding for campus construction and other improvements. The colleges worked together and carried out his request. 

Seeing a “real spirit of teamwork” on that task, now the governor has asked colleges to figure out a better way to divide up $2.4 billion in state operating money for higher education. 

He convened another group, headed once again by Ohio State University President E. Gordon Gee, to create a funding formula that gives the public universities a financial incentive to improve. Kasich gave them plenty of leeway, but said he would prefer success to be defined as better retention of students from one year to the next, a higher graduation rate and good careers for graduates. Ideally, colleges will do more to align their graduates’ skills with the needs of Ohio’s employers, who have difficulty filling a number of positions because of a lack of qualified applicants. 

Read the rest of the article at the Columbus Dispatch