Performance has become a factor in how schools receive money in several states. Just like a high school, colleges and universities need their students to perform well and grow as students so they can make the case that they should receive funding from their state. This is called performance-based funding. “Performance-based funding is a system based on allocating a portion of a state’s higher education budget according to specific performance measures, such as course completion, credit attainment, and degree completion, instead of allocating funding based entirely on enrollment,” says AmericanProgress.org.
PWIs (predominately white institutions) have more positive results in producing more graduates, more students who graduate with multiple degrees, and also more students who find a job within their career field than HBCUs (historically black colleges and universities). An active alumni community is also a way to earn money for the schools. However, HBCUs have a minimal amount of graduates who give back to the school from which they received an education. “U.S. News & World Report recently published a list of historically black colleges and universities that achieve the greatest rate of alumni giving.
For the HBCUs that supplied data to the survey, the average giving rate was a dismally low, 11.2 percent,” says Journal for Blacks in Higher Education (“The Sorry State of Alumni Giving at Historically Black Colleges and Universities”, 2017). If they do not give back, there are not enough resources for HBCU students. On the other hand, PWIs obtain more money from their alumnus, giving them more money to offer to their students for benefits, such as full rides or scholarships and more money to provide more resources. A recent On the Money alumni and student at Howard University said, “I love attending Howard University mostly because I am able to strengthen my identity as an African-American woman. Additionally, there are so many opportunities that come with attending an HBCU in the nation’s capital.”
There are a variety of universities that you can choose from when deciding where you would like to receive an education, but you also must keep in mind if the school is a fit for you and if the school has sufficient resources for you to be successful in college.