from VCCA Journal, Volume 3, Number 1, Spring/Summer 1988, 27-28
© Copyright 1988 VCCA Journal
The purpose of the Texas Community College study was to investigate the relationship between revenue per student and program completion rates. Assuming that positive relationships existed, the study also proposed to determine whether different levels of revenue per student changed the percentage of funds budgeted to various expenditure (i.e., functional) and recipient (i.e., quality) categories and whether these differences in resource allocations affected program completion rates.
The analysis focused on the relationship of twenty-two input (i.e., predictor) variables to four output (i.e., program completion rates) variables. To organize the independent and dependent variables into identifiable categories, six conceptual subgroups were developed:
Predictor (revenue) variables
Functional (expenditure) variables
Primary/Secondary (combined expenditure) variables--Recipient (quality) variables
Campus Size
Output (degrees/certificates awarded) variables
Results of testing the twenty-six variables indicated that more adequately funded community colleges (i.e., revenue per FTE) had higher program completion rates. This finding seemed to be supported by the fact that the proportion of expenditures did vary in systematic and predictable patterns, dependent upon the relative financial strength of a community college as measured by available discretionary income. Vocational and academic student success rates improved when institutions had more discretionary revenue per student. However, reasons for this conclusion differed for each type of program, i.e., academic or vocational. Vocational program success rates were largely attributable to the amount of funding (state and total) available to maintain small class size and high expenditure rates per student. Academic completion rates were affected only by additional dollars spent on support service and administrative activities.
It was concluded that students appear to stay with programs (vocational or academic) if they believe that they are getting a quality education. Vocational students translate quality as small classrooms, up-to-date equipment, and easy access to the instructor. The academic student trades-off easy access to instructor (no relationship to class size and completion rates) for well trained and supervised faculty. This latter observation appears to be particularly true in community colleges that utilize a larger proportion of part-time/adjunct faculty to full-time faculty.
It was also noted that the size of a college had a negative effect on academic and total degrees awarded. This study did not identify any relationship between average faculty salary and program completion rates.
Conclusions from this research can provide community college educators with specific financial information that may be used to support funding requests, to improve institutional outcomes by better utilizing existing financial resources, and to minimize the potential negative effect of differential funding.