Education policy studies faculty member awarded co-funded grant

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Kelly Rosinger, assistant professor of education in the Department of Education Policy Studies and research associate in the Center for the Study of Higher Education, and a team of researchers were recently awarded a total of $373,590 to analyze how variations in performance-based funding (PBF) policies in higher education impact outcomes for underserved students and under-resourced institutions.

Rosinger will serve as co-principal investigator for the project alongside co-principal investigator Robert Kelchen, associate professor in the Department of Education Leadership, Management and Policy at Seton Hall University, and principal investigator Justin Ortagus, an alumnus of the Penn State College of Education, assistant professor of higher education administration and policy at the University of Florida, and director of that institution's Institute of Higher Education.

The co-funded grant, titled "The Effects of Variations in Performance-Based Funding Policies on Student Access, Success, and Labor Market Outcomes," serves as the second phase of a project to address the gap in knowledge regarding the impact of PBF policy design elements on college outcomes.

The first part of the project, funded by the William T. Grant Foundation, consisted of collecting a detailed dataset on state PBF policies since 1997. The second part of the project will leverage that novel dataset to examine how specific design aspects of PBF policies can reduce gaps in student access, success and labor market outcomes.

"States have increasingly turned to performance-based funding policies as a way of linking state appropriations for public colleges to student outcomes. We are grateful to receive support for this project, which will provide policymakers with evidence for how to design PBF policies in ways that can improve outcomes for students, especially underserved students, in higher education," Rosinger said.

Rosinger, Ortagus and Kelchen will analyze data and release a series of reports and papers in the coming years on performance-based funding policies in higher education.

"We’re very excited to continue this collaborative project and look forward to analyzing the data and offering a host of evidence-based recommendations regarding the equity and efficacy of different types of performance-based funding policies," Ortagus said.

Arnold Ventures and The Joyce Foundation are providing $270,240 and $103,350, respectively, in co-funding for the grant through July 2021.