Michigan Universities (Business Leaders for Michigan Web-site / Dashboard)

Site keeps scorecard to help compare universities

By David Jesse Free Press Staff Writer

   The nonprofit Business Leaders for Michigan hopes a new, comprehensive website tracking Michigan’s public universities will help parents and students with decisions about which college to attend.

   But the group, which unveiled the website Wednesday afternoon in front of a joint meeting of the Michigan House and Senate higher education subcommittees, also hopes it will guide legislators as they decide on funding for the universities.

   The site compiles data across multiple categories, looking at state support, number of degrees granted, net cost and about 25 other categories and compares them to peer institutions across the country.

   The group found:

   • Thirteen of Michigan’s 15 public universities are below their peer average for state support.

   • Ten of them are above their peer median in producing total degrees; seven are among the top 20% of peers.

   • Thirteen are above their peer median in producing degrees in critical skills areas; eight are in the top 20% of peers.

   • As a group, Michigan’s public universities rank fifth in total degrees produced and fourth nationally in critical skills (science, technology, engineering and math) degrees produced.

   • Ten are higher than their peer average for average net price of attendance for in-state students.

   “It’s our hope that this dashboard will show the kind of returns the state is getting for its investment,” said Doug Roth-well, the group’s president and CEO.

   State Sen. Tanya Schuitmaker, R-Lawton, said she liked the new site.

   “This will be very important for parents” as they look with their children at schools, she said.

   Rothwell also used his time in front of the subcommittees to push for continued state investment in higher education.

   “If Michigan is going to be competitive for business investment and job creation, we cannot ignore the fact that Michigan is looking at a severe talent shortage,” he said.

   “Michigan will struggle to compete if employers cannot find the qualified workers they need. Our universities are major producers of talent and can help propel Michigan forward.”

   Rothwell said business leaders welcomed the 2% increase in higher education funding that Gov. Rick Snyder proposes inhis budget and like that he’s using a variety of performance measures to dole out money.

   However, Rothwell said, they’d like to see even more money added to those performance measures.

   He said he also would like to see the state using the performance measures to reward those schools that are doing excellent work.

   In the budget for the current school year, universities are rewarded for showing growth in areas such as graduation rate.

   However, some schools with high graduation rates already — the University of Michigan, for example — didn’t receive as much money as those with lower rates, but that had made improvements.

   The site is http://www.blmperformancetracker.com