Efficiency Advisory Committee The FY12-13 budget, House Bill 153, tasked the Chancellor with establishing an Efficiency Advisory Committee, composed of members from each of Ohio’s public institutions of higher education. The purpose of this committee is to generate optimal efficiency plans for campuses, identify shared service opportunities, share best practices, and explore methods for reducing the costs of textbooks and other education resource materials for students. The Chancellor’s Efficiency Advisory Committee is required to provide an annual report to the Office of Budget and Management, the Governor, and the General Assembly, compiling the operational efficiency plans for all institutions of higher education, as well as benchmarking efficiency gains realized over the preceding year and progress made in implementing the prior year’s efficiency plan.

Task Force on Affordability and Efficiency in Higher Education On February 10, 2015, Governor John Kasich signed Executive Order 2015-01K establishing the Ohio Task Force on Affordability and Efficiency in Higher Education to review and recommend ways in which state-sponsored institutions of higher education, including four-year universities and two-year community colleges, can be more efficient, offering an education of equal or higher quality while at the same time decreasing their costs. After holding a series of meetings across the state, on Oct. 1, 2015 the Ohio Task Force on Affordability and Efficiency in Higher Education delivered its recommendations to Gov. John Kasich, Senate President Keith Faber and House Speaker Cliff Rosenberger.

Task Force on Affordability and Efficiency in Higher Education Ohio’s public campuses plan to generate nearly $1.3 billion in efficiency savings and new resources over the next five years, according to action plans submitted in response to the Ohio Task Force on Affordability and Efficiency in Higher Education.

5% Reduction Plans The FY16-17 budget, Amended Substitute House Bill 64 of the 131st General Assembly, required the board of trustees of each state institution of higher education to develop and implement a plan to provide all in‐state, undergraduate students the opportunity to reduce the student cost of earning a degree by five percent. The plans were submitted to the chancellor in October of 2015, and subsequently shared with the legislature. A common strategy for cost reduction was limiting the number of credits needed to earn a bachelor’s degree to 120 semester credit hours and an associate degree to 60 credit hours. Many institutions extended full-time tuition plateaus, so that students could take additional credits at the full-time rate, without additional charges.

Regional Compacts In 2015, ODHE launched the RAPIDS (Regionally Aligned Priorities in Delivering Skills) program, which provided each region of the state funding for collaborative projects identified by business and education providers. Grants have been awarded regionally to purchase equipment used by colleges, universities, occupational training centers, and business partners to deploy trained workers into existing and emerging jobs. Also in 2015, as a part of House Bill 64, ORC Section 3345.35 required evaluations of all the courses and programs Ohio public colleges and universities offer, based on enrollment and duplication with those of other state institutions of higher education within a geographic region. As a result of these evaluations, many institutions have found courses and programs that could be offered through shared resources. For example, Bowling Green and Toledo announced a collaboration in foreign language education that will expand opportunities for students at both universities, while saving resources by reducing duplicative academic programs. House Bill 49 recognized these efforts and required further development of collaboration under Regional Compacts. ORC Section 3345.59 requires all public colleges and universities within a region to enter into a Regional Compact, in order to eliminate unnecessary duplication of academic programming, develop additional strategies to address workforce educational needs, enhance the sharing of resources between institutions, and reduce operational and administrative costs, among other strategies.

Tuition and Fee Restraint As a result of the chancellor’s biennial budget authority to restrain tuition and fees, Ohio’s tuition increases over the past 10 years have been well below the national average. According to the College Board, from FY08 to FY18, Ohio’s average university tuition increased 5.6% in inflation-adjusted dollars. That was the lowest increase over that 10-year period in the country.

Tuition and Fee Restraint

Tuition and Fee Restraint

Tuition Guarantee Programs Timeline of participating universities 2015-16 2016-17 2018-19 2017-18 Thanks to provisions included in the past few budget cycles, Ohio law allows for institutions of higher education to adopt undergraduate tuition guarantee programs. Guarantee programs provide certainty to students and their families that their tuition, applicable fees, and room and board will remain steady throughout their four-year undergraduate experience. Interest in tuition guarantee programs has been high among our public institutions; we expect to have many more programs approved by the fall 2018 semester.

Pell in Relation to Average Tuition and Fees

State Financial Aid Programs Over $140 million in annual state GRF support

Short-Term Certificate Programs House Bill 49 included $5 million to provide financial aid for students pursuing short-term certificates. The goal is to generate 5,000 new certificates that are aligned with Ohio’s in-demand jobs with the state’s $5 million investment.

Outcomes-based Funding In 2014, Governor Kasich tasked the public college and university presidents to develop recommendations that would form the basis of a 100 percent outcomes-based funding formula, in which institutions receive State Share of Instruction funding based on student completion rather than enrollment. Thanks to the legislature’s subsequent enactment of this new outcomes-based formula, Ohio became a nationally recognized leader in the development and implementation of outcomes-based funding in the four-year university and two-year community college sectors. This significant policy change has focused the efforts of college and university leaders in pursuit of student success and completion.

Outcomes-based Funding

National Landscape – Outcomes-based Funding

States Implementing Outcomes-based Funding, by Type and Sector

Expanded Focus on Student Success and Completion

First-to-Second Year Retention

Support for At-Risk Students In FY17, $161 million was allocated specifically in support of at-risk student populations

Expanded Focus on Career Advising Two key components of an affordable college education are timely completion and return on investment, which in turn make career advising and counseling for students so critical. Recognizing this, the FY16-17 budget included provisions to directly address career advising. House Bill 64 required the chancellor to develop implementation strategies to embed work experiences into degree curriculum with the use of OhioMeansJobs, and required both state and private nonprofit institutions to have career counseling programs in place by December 2015. Our institutions stepped up by focusing resources, bolstering their career counseling efforts, and aligning strategies for student success. These approaches are centered around student involvement, career exploration, career readiness, and experiential learning opportunities that lead to pathways for employment and career success.

Attainment Goal Ohio faces a workforce development imperative to address the gap between employer needs and job-seeker knowledge and skills. To successfully compete for business investment and jobs, Ohio needs to significantly increase the number of its citizens with postsecondary education credentials relevant in the workplace. That is why Ohio has established a statewide goal for educational attainment, which states that 65 percent of Ohioans, ages 25-64, will have a degree, certificate, or other postsecondary credential of value in the workplace by 2025.

Shortening the Time to Degree In order to achieve this attainment goal, we’re working to help our institutions work with students in ways that will help them earn credentials faster and with fewer courses: Co-requisite remediation shifts from taking remedial courses in sequence BEFORE the college-level math or English course to offering just-in-time supports to students as they are taking the college-level courses. Colleges and universities that have implemented co-requisite remediation have seen significant increases in students getting through the first college-level course without getting stuck in the cycle of remediation. Guided pathways provide students with a clear roadmap and sequencing of courses to their degree. In addition, guided pathways are coupled with comprehensive advising to reduce wandering.

Shortening the Time to Degree Attainment initiatives that ODHE has developed include two grant-funded programs: Strong Start to Finish: ODHE – in collaboration with IUC and OACC – received a three-year, $2.1 million dollar grant from the Education Commission of the States to increase the percentage of students completing their first college-level mathematics and English courses in their first 12 months of enrolling in a degree program from 33% statewide to 50%. Ohio was one of four sites selected from a competitive national process. Thirty of our institutions are participating in these efforts to accelerate student success. Bridges to Success: A $1.3 million, multi-year initiative funded by the Helmsley Charitable Trust works with schools to develop co-requisite approaches to remediation in redesigned gateway math courses as part of a guided pathway to degree. Nine schools have piloted these efforts under Bridges to Success and five are in the process of bringing it to scale for all incoming students by next semester.

College Credit Plus During the 2016-2017 school year, over 800 College Credit Plus students earned a degree or certificate while still in high school.

2+2 Programs 2+2 Ohio Revised Code sections 3333.16 and 3333.165 required the chancellor to update and implement the policies and procedures to ensure that any associate degree offered at a state institution of higher education may be transferred and applied to a bachelor’s degree program in an equivalent field at any other state institution of higher education. In essence, this will enable students to seamlessly transfer with an associate degree from a community college into a bachelor’s degree program in a particular field of study, resulting in a lower cost pathway to a four-year degree.   A great example of this model is the Preferred Pathway program agreement between Columbus State Community College and nine four-year degree granting partners. Columbus State’s low tuition resulted in 76 percent of students taking on zero student debt in the first two years of their pursuit of a bachelor’s degree. 

3+1 Programs 3+1 House Bill 49 Section 381.570 requires the chancellor, in consultation with IUC and OACC, to develop a model for 3+1 agreements, where a student can attend a community college for the first 3 years of a bachelor's degree, and then complete the degree at a university with 1 additional year of study. Currently, existing 3+1 pathways are being studied and ODHE staff members have been gathering information from campuses with successful pathways to learn about 3+1 pathways that could serve as models for the state. A report on these model programs will be ready by June 30, 2018. Once developed, 3+1 pathways could be an extremely cost-effective option for students who are interested in obtaining their bachelor’s degree at the lowest cost possible.

Applied Bachelor’s Degree Programs ORC Section 3333.051 (enacted through HB 49) permits the chancellor to approve applied bachelor’s degrees at community colleges, under certain criteria, particularly around workforce need and lack of duplication for the proposed programs. ODHE reviewed submissions from 11 community colleges (16 programs) and found 9 applications to be compliant with the minimum statutory requirements. These 9 applications were posted for a 10-day public comment period in December, and ODHE held public stakeholder meetings regarding each program in January of 2018. The chancellor evaluated each of the applications against the requirements identified in the ORC, while considering stakeholder input, and recommended that 5 of the programs move forward to the Higher Learning Commission and ODHE’s program approval processes. Four of the programs were deferred, pending further review. A second round of applications is currently under consideration.

Western Governors University WGU has programs in 4 main areas: Business, Education, Information Technology, and Health Professions. Currently, WGU serves over 91,000 students nationwide, and 2,179 in Ohio. The average WGU student is 37 years old 71% of students in one or more underserved populations (i.e. first-generation, ethnic minority, low income, or rural resident) 73% of students work full-time. Undergraduate tuition is $3,190 per 6-month semester, an annual cost of $6,380, for as many competencies as a student can achieve in that timeframe. Western Governors University established its eighth state affiliate, WGU Ohio. WGU’s affordability and online, competency-based learning model provide another option for busy adults to earn a degree as they balance work and family responsibilities. WGU completed its program approval process with ODHE in January, with a formal program approval signing and event with the Chancellor and WGU president in February. Plans are underway for a launch of WGU-Ohio in June.

Rising Cost of Textbooks

Annual Report on Efforts to Reduce Textbook Costs The most recent budget requires each public institution to report on efforts taken to reduce textbook costs as part of its annual Efficiency Advisory Committee reporting, as well as tasking the schools to conduct an annual study to determine the current cost of textbooks and submit it to the chancellor. Boards of trustees shall also adopt a textbook selection policy for faculty to follow when selecting and assigning textbooks and other instructional materials.

Create, adopt, and utilize OER materials for 22 courses Open Educational Resources (OER) In June, 2017, North Central State College, in collaboration with Ohio State and Ohio Dominican universities, received $1,300,000 to develop open educational resources (OER) and other materials with 15 other community colleges in an effort to reduce the cost of textbooks for students. Create, adopt, and utilize OER materials for 22 courses 19 between OSU & community colleges 3 ODU high-level math courses

Inclusive Access Authority Legislative authority to assess fee Providing Inclusive Access affects not only affordability, but also student success. Studies indicate that students who have access to learning materials on day 1 are more likely to succeed than those without that access.