Upholding an equity-focused mission can be challenging for administrators, particularly in light of recently implemented policies that center funding based on student performance. Based on interviews with administrators across four universities in the same state, this work examines the ways in which performance-based funding (PBF) requirements are interacting with the public-serving mission of urban-serving research universities (USRUs) in the USA. Key findings highlight perceived tensions between PBF and USRUs, implications of these tensions of the understanding and enactment of the USRU mission, redefining of concepts of improvement, and implications of PBF on deepening stratification across a differentiated system.