AUSTIN – As the Texas House Appropriations Committee hears from state university leaders today on its budget recommendations for Texas higher education, the Texas Public Policy Foundation encourages the dialogue to focus on how to achieve greater operating efficiencies in our state colleges and universities.
“Before lawmakers roll back their initial budget reductions for Texas public universities, those institutions need to come forward with specific plans to cut their costs and streamline their institutions,” said Heather Williams, higher education policy analyst at the Texas Public Policy Foundation. “Too many of our universities are a long way from being efficient and accountable with our tax and tuition dollars.”
The Texas Public Policy Foundation has produced research on several recommendations that will make Texas public universities more efficient and affordable. These include measuring teaching efficiency and effectiveness to evaluate performance, using student evaluations of instructors to account for instructor compensation, and using “results-based” contracts with students to measure the quality of teaching. The full list of proposed solutions can be found at: http://www.texashighered.com/7-solutions.
“Given Texas’ sizable budget shortfall and a long-term trend of tuition increases, Texas public universities have an obligation to reduce their administrative overhead and operating costs, and to make sure that our limited resources are focused on providing students with high quality instruction,” Williams continued.
Heather Williams is the higher education policy analyst at the Texas Public Policy Foundation.
The Texas Public Policy Foundation is a non-profit free-market research institute based in Austin.
Primary website: www.TexasPolicy.com Facebook page: www.Facebook.com/TexasPublicPolicyFoundation Twitter feed: www.Twitter.com/TPPF
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