Dive Brief:
- Four-year Lumina Foundation grants awarded to seven states in 2009 have pushed education policy toward increasing productivity when it comes to helping students succeed.
- Inside Higher Ed reports that a new study looks at the grant outcomes relating to four policy areas Lumina encouraged: performance-based funding, student aid and tuition policies linked to completion, redesigns to improve student pathways and transitions, and campus business efficiencies.
- Lumina’s strategy director said the business efficiencies piece is a precondition to changing faculty behaviors, as faculty are more likely to support change if administrators show they’re increasing efficiency, as well.
Dive Insight:
Private foundations have great influence over the higher education landscape, creating controversy when their values conflict with the values of educators and others involved in the process. The Gates Foundation has been a major player in the higher education sphere, attempting to impact policymakers as well as individual schools and districts with its money and research.
Charles and David Koch have been criticized for targeting their own philanthropy to impact classroom teaching. Performance-based funding is one of the more controversial of the Lumina recommendations as state policies only questionably take into account the student bodies each campus is serving when assessing outcomes.