Florida International University ranked highest among the 12 Florida public universities in qualifying for performance-based funding awards. 

Criteria to determine the awards include graduate employment or further education, median wage of graduates, tuition and fees, graduates with degrees in areas of strategic emphasis, and other indicia of academic progress. 

Eleven of the state’s 12 public universities scored above 70 out of 100, the threshold to receive all of their share of state-allocated funding. The pot contains more than $300 million, with shares ranging from $71 million for the University of Florida to $5.1 million at New College of Florida. 

One university will miss out on at least half of its performance-based funding. Florida Gulf Coast University would have been entitled to $15.3 million but posted the lowest score at 63. Because that’s under a 70 score, that entitles it to at least $3.8 million since it met the first requirement of submitting a student success plan and, if the plan is implemented plan by March, it would qualify to double that amount to $7.6 million.

However, the balance of the original entitlement will be shared among FIU, the University of Florida, Florida State University, and University of South Florida, which scored the highest (FSU and USF tied for third place).

“I’m very proud to say we’ve already implemented the student success improvement plan and I assure you that we are not going to have the same conversation next year, so we are already seeing the improvements in many of our metrics,” FGCU President Aysegul Timur said during the Thursday meeting of the State University System Board of Governors in Orlando.

FIU has scored the highest in three of the past four years, notching a 96 this year. 

State government instituted the performance-based funding program in 2014. 

Board members are talking about fiddling with the formula, partly because high-scoring universities can get penalized if their scores decline even modestly. For example, The University of Central Florida scored 85 points this year, two points less than last year; if it drops by even one point next year, it would be required to submit a student success plan, but still be eligible for 100% of funding as long its score remains above 70.

Other schools that scored lower than the year before are Florida A&M University, Florida Polytechnic University, the University of North Florida, and USF.

Additionally, FSU Board of Trustees chair Peter Collins said that increased investments to attract students who receive Pell grants — a factor in the scoring — could prove a poor use of money, because it could spark in-state competition for that pool of students. 

Alan Levine, vice chair of the Board of Governors, acknowledged Collins’s point, adding that, given Florida universities’ national rankings, it makes sense for the board to start measuring Florida universities against their peers in other states, such as the University of Michigan and Duke.

“Evolving these metrics to be more specific to the institution and that institution’s goals makes a whole lot of sense, given where we are,” Levine said.

Overall, Levine praised the performance-based funding program, saying it produced improvements at FAMU. 

FAMU ranking up for discussion

During the board’s Friday meeting, a representative of the FAMU Alumni Association, William Youmans, said the university’s score of 72 is respectable but argued the university deserves credit “in context of the challenges that our students overcome and the university’s accomplishments.”

“FAMU is persevering through it all,” Youmans said, given that many of its incoming students aren’t as prepared for college because of social and other barriers that the university needs to help them overcome.

FAMU is the only historically Black university in the State University System. More than 80% of its students are Black and more than 90% are students of color.

“Some metrics are interdependent and should be calculated in context to each other, such as graduation rate and university-access rate to the actual outcomes, to include the social mobility index,” Youmans said.

The social-mobility index calculates a school’s role in improving the economic mobility of its students.

Despite historical factors affecting the communities broadly served by FAMU, its students must compete with the other 11 universities in categories such as starting salary of graduates, graduation rate, and incoming high school GPA, or else the university risks forfeiting performance funds to the other universities.

In the first year of performance-based funding, 2012-13, FAMU tied for seventh out of the 11 universities. This year, it ranked tenth of 12.

FAMU was ranked the 2024 best among Historically Black Colleges and Universities by Niche and the 91st best public school in the U.S. by U.S. News & World Report.