Finance plan gets national attention

Dec. 17—Texas' plan to revamp community college funding has gotten attention from all over the country.

Commissioner of Higher Education Harrison Keller said in a phone interview that the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board is excited about the traction the report and recommendations are getting with state policymakers, the business community and most importantly with community college leaders.

"I spent some time speaking at national meetings and conferences just over these last couple of months. I've been at a couple of meetings where folks have been asking me about the community college work even before the report was out, so the report was getting some national attention," Keller said.

"One of the questions everyone around the country asked me was ... how do the colleges feel about this recommendation to shift the majority of state funding to a dynamic outcomes based formula and I have to tell them our colleges are unanimous in their support for the report and the recommendations. ... Our community college leaders have been strongly supportive of this work and the direction of the recommendations," Keller said.

"I think there's a lot of enthusiasm and momentum with our community college leaders, so of course there are a lot of questions we're going to have to answer as we work on a bill and a rider with the policymakers through the legislative session. There are going to be hundreds of questions we're going to have to answer as we ... shift into implementation, but to have this kind of support and partnership with the community college leaders across the state gives us tremendous momentum. I'm excited about the recommendations and enthusiastic about the early discussions we've had with the governor's office, with legislative leadership and with key members of the legislature. I'm looking forward to the legislative session," Keller said.

One of the concerns voiced at a recent Odessa College Board of Trustees meeting was that even if OC did well and should get a nice chunk of outcomes based funding, it might get pulled out from under them because another community college needed more help.

"I think that's key is that if we move in the direction of a dynamic outcomes based formula, then the legislature needs to provide the funding so that we don't pull the rug out from under the community colleges," Keller said.

"It's incumbent on the legislature to provide those resources, but of course the idea is these incentives, the outcomes-based formula is tied directly to the core mission and responsibilities of the college and to our workforce needs. The legislature, over time, might have to put in additional funding for the outcomes-based formula, but that will be directly tied to having more credentials in high-demand fields, to having more students transferring, to having a stronger talent pipeline for the state," he said.

"That's going to be key is the legislature will need to support this new direction of having a dynamic outcomes-based formula that will help our communities, our regions and state be competitive in the future."

Keller said the package of recommendations include more funding to recognize the additional cost, for example, of operating small and rural serving colleges.

"Also, there are adjustments that will be built into the formulas for student need, to help address the higher cost of serving students who aren't college ready when they enter community colleges, serving students from low-income backgrounds and also higher cost for serving adults who have been out of school for several years and need to reskill and upskill to get a new job to advance in their careers. There are real costs associate with that work and the community college formulas in Texas and almost every other state don't recognize those costs at all," Keller said.

"That's all built into this new proposed structure ... so that means Texas would not only have the strongest connection between our community college formulas and the needs of our economy, but we will build in the most equitable mechanism so that we have the most equitable community college finance system in the country," Keller added.

"All eyes are on Texas right now. There's actually a few other states who are organizing work on community college finance right now. I've heard from several people across the country that they're looking to the technical work that informed the commission and then the recommendations to provide guidance about where they need to go."

On the state of higher education, Keller said he emphasized in a recent speech that there were a couple of times in history — immediately after the Civil War and the post-World War II era — where the needs and expectations in the economy changed rapidly and there was suddenly a disconnection between what employers needed and what higher education were designed to do.

Both eras, Keller said, set the stage for tremendous periods of American prosperity.

"I think we are at the front edge of another one of these historic moments where our needs and expectations for higher education have changed faster than anyone anticipated. It's more and more important to have education and credentials beyond high school diplomas. Almost all our net new jobs in Texas require some education and training beyond high school," Keller said.

"Right now there are about a million job openings across the state. About half of those are positions that require education and training beyond high school where employers are actually having trouble filling those jobs. We have about a half million jobs that require higher education and that could be a short-term workforce credential; it could be an associate degree; a bachelor's degree; it could be a graduate degree so across different kinds of jobs from commercial truck drivers, nurses, to teachers, to software developers, to engineers," Keller said.

About a half million have filed for unemployment, he said.

"So how could that be? Well, it's because those Texans don't have the credentials and they don't have the knowledge and skills for those jobs. So that opportunity gap between the direction our economy is heading, what employers are needing and the education of our workforce is, next to inflation, that's the biggest drag on our Texas economy right now. Here we are ... we've got dozens of examples of inspiring and exciting work that's happening across community colleges, across universities, across health science centers.

"We've awarded more degrees in the last decade than ever in our history, but again, the needs and expectations have changed so we have to serve many, many more people and educate people to higher standards than we've ever achieved," Keller said.

He said he talked about the Talent Strong Texas plan and how it's so important to commit not just to tinkering around the margins, but to rethinking how they are organized, who they serve and the design of programs.

"We need more short-term programs and short-term workforce credentials. We need more of a commitment to engaging talented students earlier in the pipeline. We need to be more committed to serving adults who need to reskill and upskill so we can't get there by just doing a little more of what we've been doing," Keller said.

The pandemic accelerated changes that were already underway in the economy, especially how people use technology, how people work and how they connect and interact.

"The silver lining in that was that it also accelerated the pace of innovation in our colleges and universities. We saw for example, like Odessa College, offering more short-term programs. They lead the state in growth in enrollment across all our community colleges because they reworked their academic calendars to be more flexible," Keller said.

"We see other institutions that are doing similar things, that they're adding more eight-week programs, six-week programs. They're thinking more creatively about the interaction between continuing education, workforce programs and their credit bearing programs so there's a lot of exciting work that's underway. We're going to have to figure out how we clear regulatory brush, get behind the innovators and move faster and a much greater scale. That's one of the reasons I'm so excited about the community college finance recommendations. That would be an early transformation in how we fund community colleges that would be much more clearly aligned with our goals and the needs of our economy," Keller added.