USA Funds-Supported Report and Symposium Focus on Maryland Higher-Education Challenges

USA Funds^® served as a sponsor of a recent report and event addressing challenges that face Maryland’s higher-education system.

The report and a July symposium are part of an ongoing strategic plan to develop a model for Maryland’s postsecondary-education system.

The state’s legislative Commission to Develop the Maryland Model for Funding Higher Education is overseeing the plan. The group comprises college and university presidents, legislators, business executives and members of postsecondary-education associations.

The effort started in January, with the release of a Van de Water Consulting report that studied postsecondary-education models used by other states, and that outlined the impact of state policies on the access and affordability of postsecondary education for the average family with low-to-moderate income in Maryland.

This report, along with assessments on capital needs for higher education, will help shape a 10-year growth plan for higher education in Maryland. USA Funds and Lumina Foundation for Education underwrote the report, “Meeting Maryland’s Postsecondary Challenges: A Framework to Guide Maryland’s Public Investments in Postsecondary Education in the Coming Decade.” You’ll need Adobe Reader to access the report.

”Meeting Maryland’s Postsecondary Challenges” calls for an education model that addresses the following issues:

• Defining the state’s goals for postsecondary access and affordability in measurable terms.
• Improving coordination of planning and budget development.
• Aligning policy decisions about three funding components: state appropriations to higher education, tuition and fees at the public colleges and universities, and allocations to student financial aid. 
• Amending student-aid programs to reflect and support the state’s goals for postsecondary access and affordability.

The Maryland Higher Education Commission endorsed the recommendations; the report was distributed to Maryland’s governor, 188 senators and delegates, and other key audiences.

Panel discusses higher-education issues
Then, on July 9, presenters from the National Conference of State Legislatures, State Higher Education Executive Officers and the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education, and researcher Gordon Van de Water gathered on in Annapolis, Md., to lead a panel discussion. The group addressed issues facing Maryland’s postsecondary-education system, focusing on access and affordability.

More than 150 representatives from colleges and universities, as well as representatives of state agencies and government attended the event. Sponsoring the symposium with USA Funds were the Commission to Develop the Maryland Model for Funding Higher Education and Lumina Foundation for Education.

“USA Funds is pleased to underwrite this report and serve as a co-sponsor of this symposium to facilitate discussion on the challenges that Maryland students face when pursuing a postsecondary education,” says Henry Fernandez, USA Funds executive director of access and outreach. “We believe the findings and recommendations contained in the report, as well as issues raised during the symposium, will have a positive impact on Maryland’s higher-education system.”

The Commission to Develop the Maryland Model for Funding Higher Education will use the information gathered at the symposium to guide its next steps in developing a funding model for Maryland higher education.

“The symposium’s panel of experts offered us invaluable advice and showed us that there are no simple solutions to the access and affordability issues facing Maryland’s students,” says Andrea Mansfield, assistant secretary, finance policy, Maryland Higher Education Commission. “Our next step is to look at the issues of access and affordability and analyze how these issues affect Maryland’s students and postsecondary-education institutions.”