A legislative task force is staring at a growing problem with higher education in Louisiana: How to fund a system with more demands than ever before while state and federal dollars are on the decline.
Louisiana uses a outcomes-based formula to fund its colleges and universities. The bulk of the money provided, 70%, is considered base funding to cover their operational expenses. The remaining 30% rewards schools for reaching benchmarks, such as student retention, and meeting state priorities like workforce needs.
Questions about the formula were first raised earlier this year when some conservative lawmakers became aware of an old metric that incentivized universities to graduate already-enrolled minority students. Though it had already been removed from the formula, this metric became the topic of a U.S. Department of Education investigation.
