University of Missouri System

Strategic Communications

Spectrum

Volume 34, Number 5, October 2007

Board receives update on funding strategy for public universities

UM administrators from all four campuses in conjunction with representatives from each four-year public university in the state are making progress on a funding model that would aid the legislature in making funding allocations in coming years, the Board of Curators was apprised during its October meeting in Columbia, Mo.

The study group, led by UM Associate Vice President for Finance and Administration Larry Gates, was initiated by the University of Missouri and expanded to include representation from the other four-year higher education institutions at the request of presidents of the Council on Public Higher Education (COPHE). Since then, the study group has developed funding formula guiding principles and discussed funding components.

UM Vice President for Finance and Administration Nikki Krawitz told the Board that six guiding principles have defined the work group’s efforts, including a funding model that provides a realistic estimate of the overall funding needs of an institution and the belief that no institution should lose financial resources as a result of the funding model.

Three approaches were discussed to support the base budget, Krawitz said. After sharing the approaches with COPHE presidents, the work group was instructed to pursue the weighted student FTE model, which is designed to estimate the amount of state appropriations required to fund core missions and support functions through a single formula.

“The weighted FTE model is market sensitive and academic program or discipline oriented,” Krawitz said. “The model recognizes that cost differences exist in the delivery of academic discipline-based courses and programs for different levels of students and reflects in part the differences in mission and programmatic orientation of each institution.”

A cost ratio matrix of academic discipline clusters and student levels has been developed that weights student credit hours at the doctoral level in a high-cost academic discipline approximately 10 times more than student credit hours in a lower division undergraduate course.

The work group is now turning its attention to performance funding and funding for strategic initiatives, as well as a discussion of policy goals and priorities for higher education in the state.

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