Comptroller Finds Incomplete Implementation of ‘Complete College Act’

Dr. Richard Rhoda is executive director of the Tennessee Higher Education Commission.

Now that funding for public universities in Tennessee depends on their graduation rates, the state comptroller says data they submit needs to be verified. State auditors have been tracking implementation of a set of laws meant to get more students finishing a degree.

Prior to passage of the Compete College Act of 2010, universities were funded based on enrollment numbers. Now that graduation rates are the key, the Tennessee Higher Education Commission is being asked to do more than take a college’s word for the stats.

THEC executive director Richard Rhoda agrees oversight can improve, but he doesn’t believe schools could inflate graduation figures to get more money.

“We have kind of chuckled about that around here because the way to game the system is to have more successful students. So should an institution go in that direction, everybody is a winner.”

Overall, the Comptroller’s report is positive, but it says public universities still haven’t made it easy to transfer credits from two-year to four-year schools in every degree program. Rhoda says universities may try to change state law rather than create a way to start every degree at a community college.

Nearly 50 degree paths have been created. Rhoda says that includes the most popular degrees, but not all.

“We essentially address certainly the spirit of the legislature, and there are some majors that are so specialized where there really is no pre-major other than to be in that program.”

Rhoda says nuclear engineering and architecture are two examples of majors that need to be exempted from the transfer pathway requirement in current law.