An Inquiry Into Colorados College Opportunity Fund

The first and only voucher-based policy approach to finance higher education in America, the College Opportunity Fund (COF), was implemented by the state of Colorado in 2004. In 2011, this research study conducted a survey to seventeen senior administrators of Coloradan universities, as an attempt to examine the outcomes and effects of the COF program, from the administrators' perspective. What are the lessons learned from the College Opportunity Fund according to the university executives?

The Colorado Department of Higher Education is using this first-in-the-nation, student-friendly, fiscal approach to tackle the state's challenges of low participation and depleting financial resources.

This report for the College Opportunity Fund (COF) covers the first two fiscal years of the COF program, FY05-06, FY06-07. It describes the implementation efforts of COF program stakeholders, the statistics of participation in the program, and concerns of the program. COF enables qualifying resident students to use higher education tuition stipends to pay tuition at participating institutions. Along with fee-for-service and performance contracts, the stipends replace the prior funding approach of direct appropriations from the state legislature to institutions of higher education. The COF program was intended to improve access to and awareness of higher education and, by linking higher education funding to student enrollment, to give institutions an incentive to market to prospective students. Performance contracts were negotiated to improve access and retention, quality, institutional efficiency and the state's priority needs. In exchange, institutions were intended to have more flexibility and less state oversight. Devised at a time of constrained state support, the COF program was designed so that all publicly funded institutions would qualify for enterprise status under TABOR (Taxpayers' Bill of Rights), providing flexibility for both the governing boards and the executive branch to address revenue need of each institution. Four appendixes include: (1) Institutional Implementation Efforts; (2) Fee-for-Service Contract Table; (3) College in Colorado's COF Marketing Efforts; and (4) Additional Information. (Contains 6 tables.).

This document supplements the Commission policies on the College Opportunity Fund program and provides guidance to institutions and students on: student, course, and enrollment eligibility, invoice and reconciliation files; and program operations.

This report describes the best practices described by national experts, some of the actions that are currently being taken by Colorado institutions of higher education and recommendations for improving programs to retain and graduate minority and low-income students. Over the course of the taskforce's meetings, it became clear that Colorado's institutions are all working in different ways to answer many of the questions addressed by the national experts. Each of the institutions that presented to the taskforce had programs and policies in place to address the needs of minority and low-income students. There were some programs present on almost every campus; others programs are not present on each campus. Several institutions presented the taskforce with information about programs that are particularly successful on their campus. The taskforce found that what is largely absent is a systematic approach that coordinates alignment of federal, state and local resources to focus those limited resources on ensuring minority student success. Under Colorado's new College Opportunity Fund program, the state's institutions of higher education have the opportunity to focus their limited resources on meaningful programs to assist low-income and minority students. To meet this end, institutions must develop long-term plans to address these issues and prioritize funding to attend to the needs of low-income and minority students. The taskforce recommend the following as first steps toward a long-term, systemic approach to ensuring minority student success.: (1) Amend Performance Contract Provisions to Require Best Practices; (2) Amend Fee-for-Service Contracts to Fund Research-Based Support Services; (3) Amend Performance Contract Provisions to Include Specific Support Services; (4) Prioritize Work Study Within Financial Aid; and (5) Implement an Online Textbook Pilot Program to Reduce Book Costs.

American higher education faces a challenging environment. Decreasing state appropriations, rising costs, and tightening budgets have left American colleges and universities scrambling to achieve their missions with ever more limited resources. Campus leaders have therefore increasingly relied upon institutional research and strategic planning departments to make transparent and rational decisions and to promote good stewardship of critical but finite resources. Institutional Research Initiatives in Higher Education illustrates the wealth of institutional research activities occurring in American higher education. Featuring chapters by a prominent mix of authors representing community colleges, traditional undergraduate institutions, land grant institutions, research and flagship universities, and state agencies, this book provides numerous insights into the contemporary challenges, innovative programs, and best practices in institutional research. With contributors from a variety of regions and types of institutions, each chapter provides rigorous analysis of campus-based research activities in areas such as strategic planning, admissions and enrollment management, assessment and compliance, and financial planning and budgeting. Like the departments it studies, Institutional Research Initiatives in Higher Education is an invaluable resource for university administrators, researchers, and policymakers alike.