The demands of society and constraints on resources will require change in the financing models states use to fund their higher education enterprises. Models built on the priorities of student access and institutional growth will no longer suffice. Those based on student success and productivity increases consistent with getting more entering students through the pipeline will become ascendant. Models based on preserving the status quo will have to give way to those that foster purposive change. They will have to be more explicitly a tool of public policy rather than a device for institutional funding. To be effective, financing models need to comprise all four components identified in this article, coordinated in ways that make them mutually reinforcing. To this end, state policymaking will also have to change. (Contains 1 figure.)