FGCU worried it may lose $8 million in funding
Florida Gulf Coast University is worried a change in the state's performance-based funding metrics may cause it to become a bottom-performing school and lose more than $8 million in funding.
FGCU's Board of Trustees and the school's top administrators plan to meet at 8:30 a.m. Friday to discuss the change and what to do if the worst happens.
"I have been teasing people, but it's only partially a tease, that in prior years I have felt entirely comfortable as we went into the metric season, which for me adds another layer to the term March Madness," Ron Toll, provost and vice president for academic affairs, said last week at a Faculty Senate meeting.
"I have never felt like I needed to engage in buying a lot of Maalox. This year I am starting to buy Maalox in 55-gallon drum quantities and have it on board. There are some serious issues facing us, extraordinarily important to us."
The Florida Board of Governors decided last month to no longer use an average cost per degree metric as one of the 10 categories that determine how Florida's universities are performing and how much funding they should receive.
The metric has been replaced with a new one — net tuition per degree. The new metric will take into account the amount of financial aid, grants and scholarships universities are giving students and other factors.
Part of the reason the board went with the new metric is because it should force schools to keep costs low for students. The universities that keep costs down and offer the most aid and scholarship money are expected to perform well in the category.
Estimates show that FGCU's net tuition cost per degree is $18,060 — the highest among Florida's universities.
When the Board of Governors met in November, FGCU President Wilson Bradshaw asked about delaying the implementation of the metric. He noted the complexity of the metric, that 11 factors are used to determine net tuition per degree, and the metric will have "dramatic effects on some institutions."
Other universities, including Florida International University and the University of Central Florida, have expressed concerns about the metric.
What if?
Twelve schools are in the Florida's State University System and all but Florida Polytechnic University participate in the funding system.
The schools are awarded scores from zero to 10 depending on how well they do in each of the performance categories. The total score a school can achieve is 100 points.
Schools that score less than 50 points or the three lowest-scoring schools are penalized by having part of their funding taken away. In the past, the worst performing schools have been given an opportunity to have the money restored.
The money for performance-based funding comes from two pools: the state investment and the schools' investment. FGCU is afraid it might lose the former.
The university is concerned about the schools that will benefit the most from the new metric gaining points, leapfrogging FGCU and sending it to the bottom three, costing the school the $8 million and a chance to earn at least $3 million in additional funding.
FGCU officials would not discuss earlier this week what an $8 million funding loss could mean for the university, but they said it is something they will be prepared to talk about during Friday's meeting.
"In that regard, I have asked the president and his cabinet to answer that question that you've just asked and that is, 'What if?'" said Dudley Goodlette, FGCU board chairman. "What are the options that we have available to us?
"Are there reserve funds that we can tap into if all of a sudden we have a $8 million to $11 million hole? Is this going to mean we can't go forward with some of what we have already anticipated in our strategic planning process moving forward in the health sciences?"
The strategic plan the FGCU board approved this year includes looking into the feasibility of creating dentistry and pharmacy schools.
'It just doesn't make sense'
FGCU Trustee Ken Smith said he thinks the potential impact FGCU could face as a result of the new metric is unfair.
"It just doesn't make sense to me that this one metric drives us down into the bottom three when we have been in the middle," he said.
FGCU received $17.8 million in performance-based funding for the 2016-17 fiscal year. FGCU scored 67 points and ranked seventh out of 11 schools in total points earned.
The FGCU board was disappointed in the university's performance in some categories. The school scored zero points in the six-year graduation rate category and three points each in the average cost per bachelor's degree and academic progress rate categories.
The university scored seven points or more in each of the remaining seven categories, including 10 points in two of them.
FGCU, the Board of Governors and other universities agreed that the average cost per bachelor's degree metric was problematic. Part of the problem with the metric was funding increases to universities' budgets made it a difficult category for universities to perform well.
Goodlette wrote a letter in October to Tom Kuntz, chairman of the Board of Governors, Ned Lautenbach, the board's vice chairman, and Marshall Criser, chancellor of the State University System, communicating FGCU's concerns about the new metric.
Goodlette wrote that FGCU as a 19-year old institution does not have an alumni base that can make large philanthropic donations and that hinders FGCU when it comes to building an endowment to help students defray costs.
The assets for Florida Gulf Coast University Foundation, the school's fundraising arm, stand at $116 million and the endowment is at $73 million.
The foundation's preliminary 2015-16 annual report indicated that FGCU had given out 1,313 foundation scholarships totaling more than $2.6 million.
FGCU had a record-breaking fundraising year, bringing in $33.3 million in gifts. FGCU is in the midst of trying to raise $100 million by its 20th anniversary in 2017. The last update FGCU provided on the campaign said it had raised more than $92 million.
As of Wednesday, 14,826 students were enrolled at FGCU. The school has more than 24,500 graduates.
Goodlette said he thinks student debt needs to be somehow factored into the formula being used to determine net tuition per degree. He noted that 54 percent of FGCU students graduate without debt.
But the Board of Governors disagrees with Goodlette for several reasons. One point the board makes is students sometimes use loan money for non-education related expenses.
FGCU board member Shawn Felton said he understands that there are some serious concerns related to the metric change, but he is looking at things from a different perspective, including what can FGCU do to improve in the categories where it has struggled.
"So whether the metric 3 change is fair or another metric is fair, we can debate until we are blue in the face," said Felton, who also is the Faculty Senate president. "I like to look at it more on the optimistic side of things. These are now the guidelines, and we've got to move forward from that."