College leaders: Keep current performance model

Senate to consider tightening graduation standards to 2, 4 years.

TALLAHASSEE — Florida college presidents say they are opposed to a new performance-based funding measure that will be considered by the Senate Appropriations Committee next week.

James Henningsen, president of the College of Central Flor- ida, told the State Board of Education on Thursday that the colleges want to stay with the performance standards that the board adopted in 2015.

“As the Council of Presidents, we’re in support of keeping that same model,” Henningsen told the board, which was meeting in Gainesville. “We’ve put a lot of effort (into the performance standards) over the last two years.”

The new standards contained in the Senate proposal (SB 2) would evaluate performance based on the number of full-time state college students who complete their associate degrees in two years and baccalaureate degrees in four years.

Under the current system, the 28 schools are measured based on a three-year standard for associate degrees and a six-year standard for baccalaureate degrees.

The tighter graduation standards, if they become law, could mean some schools fall short and lose performance funding.

Henningsen said the college presidents want to retain the cur- rent standards for all colleges, while agreeing that higher standards could be applied to schools seeking to win a “distinguished” institution designation.

The Senate bill with the new performance standards is one of two major higher-education bills scheduled for a vote next Thursday in the Senate Appropriations Committee. The legislation also contains a higher performance standard for state universities, holding them to a fouryear graduation measure rather than the current six.

The l e g i sl a t i on a l s o would require state universities to put in place a block tuition plan, in which students would be charged a flat rate for classes each semester rather than paying on a credit-hour basis, by the fall of 2018.

Senate President Joe Negron, R-Stuart, said this week he would like to have the two major higher-education bills (SB 2, SB 4) on the Senate floor by the first week of the 60-day legislative session, which begins March 7.