Performance-Based College Financing Systems Often Die Young, Researchers Say

By Peter Schmidt

San Diego

Schemes for tying state support of public colleges to performance tend to share the same flaw: They are vulnerable to dying off before they can show how well they perform.

Such was the consensus among several experts on state higher-education policy who took part in a panel discussion of performance-based financing systems today at the annual conference of the American Educational Research Association.

Of 26 states that have adopted performance-based college