A portion of NIU’s state funding may soon be dependent on how many graduates it produces.

The Illinois Board of Higher Education (IBHE) is working with colleges and universities to establish measurements of performance for funding.

Performance funding will allow a small percentage outside of a school’s base funding to receive money from the state if it meets the targets the universities and colleges and the IBHE set for the school, said Virginia Cassidy, NIU vice provost for Academic Planning and Development.

“A couple of years ago IBHE developed a statewide master plan for higher education that’s called the Illinois Public Agenda for College and Career Success,” Cassidy said. “One of the goals in that plan is increasing the number of students who complete a post-high school credential.”

The performance funding initiative is focused on two of the four goals outlined by the Illinois Public Agenda for College and Career Success: increasing educational attainment and increasing quality post-secondary credentials, Cassidy said.

Assisting this effort is the Performance Funding Steering Committee created by House Bill 1503. Faculties, students and state representatives such as Rep. Robert Pritchard (R-Hinkley) and Sen. Edward Maloney (D-Chicago) are on the committee, Cassidy said.

“The steering committee is in the process of developing the goals and working with all the higher education institutions on how they are going to contribute to these goals,” Cassidy said.

Performance funding is part of the Complete College American goal of having 60 percent of Illinois adults attain a college degree by 2025, according to the IBHE website.

While no performance targets have been set for NIU, a commonly discussed target is increasing college completion, Cassidy said.

The committee is focused on basing performance funding on the needs between different types of colleges and universities while anchoring them to completion of courses students enroll in, Pritchard said.

“What universities are probably going to have to do are look at ways to redirect or emphasize support for students who are especially first generation, minority or low income,” Pritchard said. “Those students seem to have the lowest success rate of graduating.”

The committee is expected to have performance funding goals and targets set by December in preparation for proposing a higher education budget to the governor after a budget is approved by the IBHE board in February 2012, Cassidy said.

Gov. Pat Quinn legislated performance funding on Aug. 12 and is expected to establish it by July 2012, Cassidy said.

Educational attainment and completion has become a priority for the U.S. as well as the state, according to the IBHE website. The U.S. has fallen behind other nations in terms of college success and that success is important for the economy, Cassidy said.