HCM Partner Martha Snyder Featured in Inside Higher Ed
Our partner Martha Snyder spoke to Inside Higher Ed about North Carolina's proposed new community college funding formula and discuss national trends related to community college leaders rethinking long-standing funding formulas. In her capacity at HCM, she has helped advise numerous states and systems on funding formula trends and recommendations that better align state goals with the growing needs of students, including most recently in Oregon, Texas and Illinois.
Per the article:
Martha Snyder, partner at HCM Strategists, an education consulting firm, believes the North Carolina plan furthers a trend of states shifting to “more value-based” funding structures for community colleges. However, she noted that the new models in Texas and Oregon are more explicitly focused on student outcomes, particularly for historically underserved groups. (North Carolina does offer a small, separate portion of funding based on student success metrics.)
Snyder hopes if North Carolina implements the proposed model, the state tracks and disaggregates student outcomes data to ensure there’s “equal access to these higher-value program areas” among different kinds of students, including first-generation and low-income students and older adult learners.
Nonetheless, she sees the blurring of lines between credit and noncredit programs as “innovative” and believes watching “how it plays out in the state and how it potentially shifts institutional decisions” could benefit other states as well.
“I think that is kind of an advancement,” she said. “I think it’s where many states would like to get to.”
Read the full article.
