Under a new state law, Rhode Island's public colleges won't get additional state funding simply for enrolling more students. They will have to prove that they're making progress on goals such as increasing graduation rates.
Over 30 states now partially—or in Tennessee's case, almost completely—fund higher education based on metrics such as graduation rates, course completions and the share of low-income students enrolled. States have applied these formulas only to two-year colleges, only to four-year colleges, or to all their public institutions.
This is the first in a two-part series on the insights and challenges facing smaller religious colleges.
As in the rest of the country, small religious colleges in the Boston area are facing difficult times. Sharp declines in enrollment and revenue are forcing many to close. Recently, for example, Andover Newton Theological Seminary — the nation's oldest theological school — announced it would shutter its campus and merge with Yale Divinity School. Marian Court College, a Catholic school in Swampscott, Mass., also closed last year. But three small colleges have bucked the trend, and are flourishing in the nation's most competitive higher education market.
