State Support for Higher Education Has No Correlation With College Quality

Interesting article in today's Chronicle of Higher Education:  State Support for Higher Education Has "No Correlation" With College Quality, Report Says, by Anne K. Walters:

Public colleges in states that spend a lot of money on higher education aren't necessarily better than colleges in states that provide them with meager support, according to a report that ranks states based on an analysis of their higher-education budgets and the performance of their colleges. The report, which was prepared by the National Center for Higher Education Management Systems, attempts to answer the age-old question in debates over state financing of higher education: Does more money equal better quality? The report, A New Look at the Institutional Component of Higher Education Finance: A Guide for Evaluating Performance Relative to Financial Resources [by Patrick J. Kelly & Dennis P. Jones] compares state funds for higher education in each state with colleges' performance in a variety of areas, including graduation and participation rates. The report concludes that education can succeed even when state support falls.

Here are the Top 10 and Top 10 rankings for "performance relative to funding" for both state higher educations systems as a whole and public research institutions:

Rank	State Higher Education Systems	Public Research Institutions
1	Utah	Colorado
2	Massachusetts	New Hampshire
3	Colorado	California
4	California	Wisconsin
5	North Dakota	Georgia
6	Maryland	New Jersey
7	Rhode Island	Texas
8	Iowa	Washington
9	Arizona	Virginia
10	Virginia	Nebraska
41	Wyoming	Kentucky
42	Louisiana	Arkansas
43	South Carolina	West Virginia
44	Arkansas	Idaho
45	Kentucky	Maine
46	Vermont	Tennessee
47	Hawaii	Wyoming
48	West Virginia	Alaska
49	Maine	Hawaii
50	Alaska	Vermont