For Immediate Release

Date:  September 18, 2006

BLOOMSBURG—Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania will receive nearly $3.3 million in the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education’s performance funding program, an increase over last year’s total of nearly $2.7 million.

This year, PASSHE will distribute $37.4 million to the 14 state-owned universities, including Bloomsburg. The performance funding program, established in July 2000, rewards universities for demonstrated success and continued improvement in areas related to student achievement, university excellence and operational efficiency.

BU’s funding was a reflection of success in the following areas: retention and graduation rates, faculty productivity (as measured in total credits per faculty), percentage of faculty who are minority, personnel ratio (as percentage of total expenditures), instructional costs and percentage of full-time tenured faculty who have attained the highest-level degree in their field, referred to as “terminal degrees.”

“I’m very proud that our measures in what I consider to be ‘quality indicators’ – student retention and graduation percentages, as well as the number of terminally qualified faculty members – were the drivers in our performance funding success,” said BU President Jessica Kozloff. “These are the indices that correspond with academic excellence and in these areas BU does very, very well.”

Universities qualify for shares of the funding based on their own improvement on a set of eight groups of performance measures, how well they fared compared with their own set of peer institutions outside of PASSHE on those same measures and on their performance in relation to System-wide goals.

BU’s performance award of $3,274,977 is based on these criteria:

- Degrees awarded, bachelor’s and master’s, $356,688.

- Second-year persistence rate, overall and minority, $870,674.

- Four- and six-year graduation rates, overall and minority, $477,393.

- Faculty productivity, total credits per full-time equivalent (FTE) instructional faculty, $319,175.

- Employee diversity, percent of faculty who are minority, $229,802.

- Personnel ratio, total personnel compensation as a percentage of total expenditures, $217,409.

- Instructional cost, undergraduate and master’s cost per FTE student, $390,781.

- Terminal degrees, percent of full-time tenured and tenure-track instructional faculty with terminal degrees, $413,054.

As in past years, the distribution of the funds has been adjusted based on institutional size. The amount of funding awarded to the universities has been increased every year, from $2 million in the first year of the program to an amount equivalent to 8 percent of PASSHE’s base appropriation from the commonwealth this year. 

Bloomsburg University is one of 14 universities in the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education. The university serves approximately 8,000 students, offering comprehensive programs of study in the colleges of Professional Studies, Business, Liberal Arts and Science and Technology.

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