Government Relations

Washington Wire

February 2004 Special Edition: Accountability Report

Washington Wire Archive | Search Washington Wire

In This Edition

UW System releases Accountability Report, "Achieving Excellence"

The current authorization of the Higher Education Act will expire on Sept. 30, requiring that the 108th Congress consider extending or “reauthorizing” the HEA in 2003-04. Each reauthorization offers Congress, the Department of Education, and the higher education community an opportunity to reexamine the purposes of the Act and the programs that serve those purposes.

Public accountability – through rankings, state-based accountability systems, and other reports of learning outcomes – is a major area of focus in higher education reauthorization.

The UW System was the first in the nation to report on systemwide accountability measures and continues to be a model for other states in their efforts. The University of Wisconsin System this month released its latest accountability report, known as “Achieving Excellence.”  The report is a year-to-year comparison of twenty measures designed to quantify how UW System is serving students and the State of Wisconsin. UW System President Katharine C. Lyall presented the report to the UW Board of Regents in February.

A model for the nation

The 2003-04 edition of "Achieving Excellence" is the UW's 11th systemwide accountability report, making more than a decade of public reporting to the university’s stakeholders. The UW System was the first in the nation to issue such systemwide reporting and continues to be a model for other states in their efforts.

The accountability report is designed to:
  • Serve as a balanced scorecard to help stakeholders see at a glance how the university is doing against selected goals and benchmarks; and
  • Be a basis for continuous improvement using indicators tied to the different missions of the University of Wisconsin’s twenty-six institutions, as well as measures related to systemwide goals.

The report gives a comprehensive assessment of Wisconsin’s public university system. The context in which UW institutions operated in 2003-04 has been especially challenging.  The UW System’s funding has become more diverse and more dependent on what it can do to support itself.

Shifting resources

State support in the form of general purpose revenue (GPR) appropriations to the university declined by $140 million this year, from about 33 percent to approximately 27 percent of overall resources. UW institutions are planning for further decline in 2004-05. State funding now supports just more than half (52 percent) of the UW System's core instructional resources – down from 61 percent one year ago.

Tuition increased to 20 percent of the total UW budget this year and makes up the remaining 47 percent of the instructional budget in 2003-04. The portion of our resources that is earned directly by our institutions through gifts, grants and program revenue is now also over half (53 percent) of our total budget available to carry out our mission. Despite large budget cuts during the period covered by this report, our FTE enrollments grew slightly reflecting the strong commitment that our institutions have to serve.

Systemwide scorecard

The scorecard shows that the UW System has met fourteen of twenty goals; has had mixed success on four; and needs improvement on two goals.

The good news is: 
  • UW continues to provide access for approximately 32 percent of immediate high school graduates;
  • UW increased pre-college participation;
  • UW served a growing number of students through online offerings; and
  • UW met rising targets for retention and graduation rates – now at the highest levels overall in UW System.
The report also shows that students and alumni give the university high marks on learning outcomes such as fostering critical thinking, preparation for a diverse world, and learning outside the classroom.

The report shows that performance on advising continues to lag. Performance on professional development for UW staff, availability and use of information technology, the allocation of resources, and credits-to-degree remain the same this year as last year. Finally, the university has not attained its goals for access for non-traditional students, study abroad opportunities, or reduction of classroom maintenance backlog.

Challenges

The outcomes in the report reflect some difficult trade-offs. UW System institutions have chosen to preserve traditional high school access over serving non-traditional students; to protect on-campus classroom instruction over study abroad programming; to proportionally protect instruction over building maintenance and other administrative functions as operating cuts are made. The choices will be tougher next year. Importantly, there is another challenge that is not directly measured in the accountability report but, nonetheless, will be critical to the UW System's ability to continue to meet its public purpose.  Student financial aid will be increasingly important to our neediest students as tuitions rise and state support falls. There are many goals that UW institutions continue to meet through exceptional efforts, tight management and the extraordinary willingness of UW chancellors, faculty and staff to go above and beyond to serve their students and communities. The entire UW System is grateful for the role Wisconsin’s congressional delegation plays in the future of the university.

The full 2003-04 Accountability Report is available online at http://www.uwsa.edu/opar/.  Please direct questions or comments to Kris Andrews, Assistant Vice President for Federal Relations, at kandrews@uwsa.edu or at (608) 263-3362.

UW On the Web

University of Wisconsin System: http://www.wisconsin.edu
Washington Wire: http://www.uwsa.edu/execvp/govrel/wwire/index.htm

Washington Wire Archive | Search Washington Wire