For many years, the U.S. has underutilized its human resources, as evidenced by the pervasive underrepresentation of several racial and ethnic groups within academia in general and the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines, in particular. To address this underutilization, academic departments within U.S. universities…

Summaries of the design, planning, and implementation of performance funding programs in Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Kentucky, Louisiana, Minnesota, Missouri, Ohio, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Washington reveal the challenges and opportunities of this reform approach. Performance measures and objectives and the history of the program in each…