This book explores how to forge policies that preserve the internal autonomy required for campus creativity and diversity while ensuring the external accountability demanded for campus performance and results. It attempts to separate the reality and rhetoric of performance funding. The chapters are: (1) "The New Accountability"; (2)…

The seventh annual Survey of State Higher Education Finance Officers (SHEFOs) shows the continuing triumph of performance reporting and the continuing trials of performance budgeting and funding in higher education. Responses from SHEFOs from all 50 states show that performance reporting, which now is used in all but 4 states, is by far the…

Urges governing boards at public colleges and universities to support budgeting for performance as a means of assuring public accountability while protecting academic autonomy. Considers performance incentives, the role of performance indicators, the distinction between performance funding and performance budgeting, possible problems, and the role…

The views of state legislators and agencies that govern higher education must be considered along with institutional perspectives on approaches to assessment of student learning outcomes. This chapter provides a review of performance indicators from twenty-nine recent state reports and discusses their implications for the assessment of student…

A fatal flaw in accountability programs is that they leave academic departments--the units most responsible for results--out of the performance loop. This article ties together institutional priorities and departmental performance through a limited list of common departmental indicators. It also links institutional aims and departmental…

Trustees find themselves in the middle of an ongoing battle over accountability and autonomy. Government officials accuse the academy of being more interested in autonomy than accountability--more interested in demanding financial support than in serving public priorities. Business leaders question the responsiveness of colleges and universities…

Examines the coverage, content, and customers of higher education performance reports, along with their purposes, priorities, initiation methods, and emerging changes in their style and substance. (EV)

Compares the results from the National Center for Public Policy in Higher Education's state report cards and state performance reports, and notes that the states with performance reports received no better grades than those without them. (EV)

Reviews the prospects, problems, and possibilities of performance reporting in higher education and discusses two fundamental flaws in performance reporting. (EV)

Traces the rise of the "new accountability" in higher education and describes the policy responses of outcomes assessment, performance funding and budgeting, and performance reporting. (EV)

Summarizes results of an opinion survey of governors' aides, legislative chairs of education committees, higher education finance officers, and campus institutional researchers on the use, effects, and future of performance reporting. (EV)

Provides state and campus policymakers' views on the importance and appropriateness of the most common indicators used in state and campus performance reports. (EV)

The State University of New York's chancellor and trustees devised an annual performance report to show constituents that they value accountability. The use of performance indicators would indicates how well the multicampus system meets its goals and provides data to enhance requests for more state funds and less regulation. (Author/MSE)

The performance types, concerns, policy values, and models of excellence implied in higher education performance reporting indicators are identified, and the use of performance measures by two- and four-year campuses are compared. (EV)

The 1990s brought a new notion of accountability for public colleges and universities. The goal shifted from accounting for expenditures to accounting for results. Academics, who were now expected to set goals and evaluate results while cutting costs, opposed the application of this model to academia. Public higher education had adopted Austin's…