FIU earns enough points for $7.2 million in new funding

Madison Fantozzi/News Director

The Board of Governors released final funding recommendations to the Florida Legislature based on its performance model: FIU ranked in the top three and is eligible for $7,268,298 in new funding, according to a Feb. 14 memorandum from President Mark B. Rosenberg.

BOG asked the Florida Legislature for $50 million in new funding and took $50 million out of state universities’ base budget—three percent from each—to reallocate, based on a 10-metric 50-point system that measures university performance.

Universities that scored above 25 points had their full share of base funding restored. The three lowest scoring universities lost one percent of their base budget, which was redistributed to the four highest scoring universities.

The University scored 34 points, restoring its $5,464,558 share and granting it $1,491,676 in additional funding.

University of Florida scored highest with 42 points—eligible for more than $11 million in new funding. University of West Florida scored the lowest with 21 points. The University tied with University of Central Florida.

The model includes eight measures common to all Florida state universities: employment rate, wages, the cost of degree, graduation rate, grade point average, the number of Pell Grant recipients, the number of bachelor’s degrees in science, technology, engineering and math and the number of graduate degrees in STEM.

Two additional measures unique to each university make up the 10-metric system. For FIU, these measures are the percent of bachelor’s degrees without excess hours and the number of bachelor’s degrees awarded to minorities.

The University received the highest number of points for its access rate, determined by the percent of undergraduates with a Pell Grant. It received another five points for its improvement in the number of bachelor’s degrees awarded to minorities.

It scored the lowest number of points for the average cost of the undergraduate degree, receiving two points on a $20,000 – $30,000 scale with the median cost of $26,730

Rosenberg said the University is working to figure out how to lower the cost of degrees.

The actual amounts of performance funding will be determined by the legislature.

Rosenberg and Chief Financial Officer Kenneth Jessell were unavailable by press time.

– madison.fantozzi@fiusm.com