HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Missouri adopts performance-based funding for higher education.

This performance-based portion of the funding will be determined by metrics such as degree completion, budget practices, and job-placement rates.

Missouri joins a growing list of states that are either developing or using formulas that tie their support to these key performance indicators. Thirty-five states have attempted performance-based funding. Missouri’s higher education board believes that the formula would help schools demonstrate their stewardship of state funds at a time when public trust in higher education is quickly diminishing.

Academic skepticism has been such a pain point for colleges and universities that it emerged as a dominant theme at the Association of American Colleges and Universities’ annual meeting. Lynn Pasquerella, president of the AAC&U, tried to blame the trend on “political jockeying” and a lack of “rational inquiry” on the matter. However, she also admitted that academia needs to demonstrate how it is “teaching students 21st-century skills … within the context of the workforce, not apart from it.”

They have their work cut out for them.

Indeed they do.