Educating Tomorrow's Workforce: New Mexico's Higher Education Funding Formula for Fiscal Year 2013

The effort by the Higher Education Department this year to make fundamental changes to New Mexico's higher education funding formula has been both a monumental challenge and an historic opportunity. For years taxpayers in New Mexico have funded a system based on inputs, or costs, and on providing strong access to institutions for students. The result has been a college and university system that is relatively expensive in cost-per-degree compared to other states, a proliferation of new campuses and learning centers without a corresponding increase in the number of degrees and certificates, and a lack of synchronization between the kinds of skills students emerge with and the workforce needs of New Mexico. While each individual institution of higher learning is producing in some cases world-class students and research, collectively, the system as a whole is not operating at optimal levels. The challenge is to shift incentives away from the costs of educational inputs toward stronger performance outputs, while still maintaining strong student access to education. The opportunity is to create a system of higher education that will provide efficient incentives for colleges and universities to help create a globally competitive workforce for the future.The University of New Mexic