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Outcomes Based Funding and Race
in Higher Education
Tiffany Jones • Sosanya Jones • Kayla C. Elliott • LaToya Russell Owens •
Amanda E. Assalone • Denisa Gándara
Outcomes Based
Funding and Race
in Higher Education
Can Equity be Bought?
Tiffany Jones Sosanya Jones
The Education Trust Southern Illinois
Washington, District of Columbia, University-Carbondale
USA Carbondale, Illinois, USA
Kayla C. Elliott LaToya Russell Owens

Florida Atlantic University Georgia State University
Boca Raton, Florida, USA Atlanta, Georgia, USA
Amanda E. Assalone Denisa Gándara

Southern Education Foundation Southern Methodist University
Atlanta, Georgia, USA Dallas, Texas, USA
ISBN 978-3-319-49435-7 ISBN 978-3-319-49436-4 (eBook)

DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-49436-4
Library of Congress Control Number: 2016961801
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2017

This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the
Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of
translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on
microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and
retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology
now known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this
publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are
exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in
this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher
nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material
contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains
neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Cover illustration: Cover pattern © Melisa Hasan
Printed on acid-free paper
This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by Springer Nature

The registered company is Springer International Publishing AG
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
CONTENTS
1 Show Me the Outcomes! The Emergence of Performance

and Outcomes-Based Funding in Higher Education 1
PART I Understanding the Impact of POBF on Racial Equity
2 Double or Nothing, States Betting It All on Performance

and Outcomes-Based Funding and the Implications
for Equity 13
3 Reparations and Rewards: Performance and Outcomes-

Based Funding and De Jure to De Facto Segregation
in Higher Education Systems 31
4 Impacting the Whole Community: Two-Year

Minority-Serving Institutions and Performance
and Outcomes-Based Funding in Texas 61
PART II Examining POBF Design, Adoption, & Revision
5 A Critical Analysis of the Sociopolitical Climate for POBF

in Three States 85
v
vi CONTENTS
6 Policy Actors, Advocates, and Critics: The Promotion

and Critique of Performance and Outcomes-Based
Funding’s Impact on Equity 107
7 Between Words and Action: The Problem with POBF

Indictors for Achieving Racial Diversity 123
8 Toward a New Framework for Funding for Equity 145
Index 161
LIST OF FIGURES
Fig. 4.1 Major Sources of Operating Revenue for Community

Colleges in Texas, FY 2011. Source: Legislative Budget
Board 2013 68
Fig. 4.2 Per-Student Funding for Community Colleges in Texas,
Before Performance Funding (2003–2013) and During
Performance Funding (2014–2015) 71
Fig. 4.3 Total Success Points Funding by Fall Headcount
Enrollment by MSI Designation, 2014 72
Fig. 4.4 Total Success Points by Enrollment by Quartiles
for Proportions of Student Subgroup Enrollments,
FY 2014–2015 75
vii
LIST OF TABLES
Table 2.1 Ohio Funding Formula 17

Table 2.2 Central State Percentage Change 18
Table 2.3 Tennessee Funding Formula 22
Table 2.4 Tennessee Higher Education Per-student Allocation 24
Table 3.1 Timeline of Critical Desegregation Cases and Other Key
Events Impacting Higher Education for Blacks 39
Table 3.2 2014 Performance Funding Allocations for Florida State
University System Institutions 47
Table 3.3 Florida’s 2014 POBF Metrics and Measurements 49
Table 4.1 Median Per-Student Funding for Public Community/
Junior Colleges from State Appropriations, by MSI
Designation and POBF Operation 70
Table 4.2 Weighted Student Success Points by Total Fall Headcount
Enrollment for Each Metric, by Weight and MSI
Designation, 2014–2015 73
Table 5.1 A Comparative Snapshot of Each State and its Adoption
of POBF Policy 87
Table 6.1 Stakeholder Perspectives on POBF and Equity 111
Table 7.1 Explicit State POBF Indicators and Weights Addressing
Racial Diversity and Equity 131
Table 7.2 State POBF Proxies for Racial Diversity 134
ix
PART I
Understanding the Impact of POBF

on Racial Equity
CHAPTER 1
Show Me the Outcomes! The Emergence

of Performance and Outcomes-Based
Funding in Higher Education
Abstract This chapter explains the evolution and characteristics of perfor-

mance and outcomes-based funding (POBF) and why it matters to achiev-
ing equity in higher education. It also describes the research questions,
methods, and theoretical frameworks guiding the book.
Keywords Performance funding Chapter overview Outcomes-based

funding
Over the last decade, concerns about the cost and value of college have
saturated the media. Less than 24 hours after HBO aired an episode about
the student loan crisis on its VICE documentary series, presidential candi-
date Hillary Clinton released a proposal to provide student loan forgiveness
to entrepreneurs. Higher education sessions and national education policy
forums are dominated by topics like “how to measure the value of college,”
“college affordability,” and “free community college.” These movements
represent the growing concern over the costs of college, students’ reliance
on student loans to pay for college, and, ultimately, whether or not it is all
worth it.
With less than half of all students in the United States completing a college
degree within six years, and student loan debt reaching $1 trillion, policy-
makers have become entrenched in a movement to hold colleges and uni-
versities more accountable to their supporters. Similar to K-12 accountability,
© The Author(s) 2017 1

T. Jones et al., Outcomes Based Funding and Race in Higher
Education, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-49436-4_1
2 OUTCOMES BASED FUNDING AND RACE IN HIGHER EDUCATION
officials are pressured to answer questions about student outcomes and

performance, the value of education, the effectiveness of instructors, and the
ability of existing leaders to manage college budgets efficiently and effectively.
States have also taken numerous actions to hold institutions of higher educa-
tion more accountable by adopting performance and outcomes-based fund-
ing (POBF) policies. Through POBF, public colleges and universities receive
state funding through formulas that no longer rely solely on student enroll-
ment, but are instead based on student outcomes. This means that lower
student outcomes such as graduation rates result in less funding for the
college or university.
POBF policies were first introduced to encourage higher education insti-
tutions to focus on issues that governments and voters felt were important,
such as outputs and efficiency (Dougherty et al., 2015). As the costs of higher
education increased in the 1980s and 1990s, so too did the demand for
greater proof that institutions provided a high-quality education and higher
graduation rates. As of 1994, more than one-third of states implemented
POBF policies that provided financial incentives for measures such as provid-
ing access for undergraduate students, sustaining quality in undergraduate
education, creating national competitiveness in graduate studies and research,
meeting critical state needs, and maintaining managerial efficiency and effec-
tiveness (Ruppert, 1994). The 1.0 version of POBF policies allowed states to
provide bonus money for high-performing campuses. However, the eco-
nomic crisis of the new millennium resulted in the reduction of such policies,
as states did not have enough funding to provide incentives to affect institu-
tional behaviors (Burke and Modarresi, 2000; Shulock, 2011). But more
recently, the popularity of POBF policies has reemerged as a result of limited
state resources for higher education and an increased demand for account-
ability for all public spending (McLendon et al., 2006). Instead of making
bonus funding available, the limited resources of POBF 2.0 stipulate that
either some or all of a campus’s base funding must be determined by student
outcomes. So far, over half of all states have adopted a funding formula that
takes student outcomes and institutional performance into account (National
Conference of State Legislatures, 2015).
HOW DOES POBF WORK?

Historically, states determined campus funding based on inputs or student
enrollment; however, POBF policies often consider student inputs, pro-
gress, and outcomes. Within POBF policies, states use input metrics to track
1 SHOW ME THE OUTCOMES! THE EMERGENCE OF PERFORMANCE . . . 3
and reward campuses that enroll and hire desired student and faculty popula-
tions. For instance, the state of Virginia measures increases in the enrollment
of in-state undergraduate students from underrepresented populations,
including low-income, first-generation, and racial and ethnic minority stu-
dents. Progress metrics includes variables like credit accumulation and reten-
tion that demonstrate colleges’ progress toward degree completion and
other outputs. Progress metrics are paired with process metrics that capture
institutional efforts to increase their capacity in ways that could increase
their institutional effectiveness. For example, in Arkansas, progress is mea-
sured at four-year institutions based on the percentage of students who earn
18 or more credit hours over two academic years. The output metrics
represent states’ goals for public higher education, which most often
means overall degree completion for targeted student populations. For
instance, the state of Nevada rewards campuses based on the number of
bachelor’s degrees conferred during an academic year. States also use POBF
metrics designed to meet state equity and diversity goals by rewarding
campuses for the enrollment and success of students that they have char-
acterized as academically “at risk” or underprepared, including adult, low-
income, underrepresented racial minority, transfer, and first-generation col-
lege students. In Oklahoma, POBF is awarded based on the retention of
Pell Grant recipients and other factors.
Since states use different definitions and metrics to define and measure
performance, models vary considerably across state lines. HCM strategists
(Snyder, 2015) have identified four different types of models to classify the
policies based on their level of sophistication and adherence to promising
practices. HCM’s typology classified Type I systems as those that are rudi-
mentary, do not involve high levels of funding, and represent a minimal
alignment between completion and attainment goals and the state’s finance
policy. Types II and III represent increasing degrees of development and
adherence to promising practices, while Type IV systems are the most robust,
with significant and stable funding, full institutional participation, differentia-
tion of metrics by sector, and prioritization of both degree/credential com-
pletion and outcomes for underrepresented students.
POBF’S SIGNIFICANCE AND IMPACT

States should be cautious in how they design their POBF policies, as
evidence illustrating that the adoption of particular POBF policies leads
to the desired student outcomes remains inconclusive. Scholars who have
studied the impact of these funding formulas have found that some
policies limited or even negatively impacted student outcomes like reten-
tion and graduation rates (Tandberg and Hillman, 2013). In some cases,
policies have even resulted in unexpected outcomes like increased selec-
tivity and increased certificate rather than degree attainment to reach
completion goals at community colleges (Dougherty et al., 2015;
Hillman et al., 2015). What remains is a limited understanding about
the implications of these policies for achieving equity in higher educa-
tion. It is also necessary to consider what POBF policies mean for
students of color–many of whom are first-generation college students
from low-income households–and the colleges and universities that pri-
marily serve these student populations, such as Minority-Serving
Institutions1 (MSIs).
Although the enrollment of students of color in higher education has
increased over time, gaps in completion rates have increased (Eberle-Sudre
et al., 2015). MSIs have fewer resources than non-MSIs, but are responsible
for enrolling two of every five students of color in higher education; in fact,
public MSIs enroll over half of all students of color in public higher educa-
tion (Cunningham et al., 2014; Jones, 2014). As higher education becomes
increasingly stratified, where students attend college, the resources pos-
sessed by those institutions, and the outcomes institutions are able to
achieve all matter. Indeed, such is critical, as students of color and low-
income students are often educated at the least-resourced institutions across
the educational pipeline. Therefore, the approaches policymakers use to
determine resources at colleges and universities that educate large propor-
tions of such students are of the utmost importance. Consequently, the aim
of this book is to examine the implications of POBF for racial equity in
higher education. More specifically, the book will:
1. Discuss how states have addressed equity in their POBF policies, and
the possibilities and limitations of these approaches;
2. Discuss the specific implications and outcomes of POBF for MSIs,
which are most likely to serve the populations who experience
significant inequities in higher education;
3. Provide policymakers and higher education scholars with recom-
mendations and strategies for using POBF to advance racial equity
in higher education; and
4. Encourage communication between those engaged in higher edu-
cation policy and the issues thereof.
BOOK OVERVIEW
Theoretical Framing
Educational policy research is often disconnected from the political and
historical contexts that shape the policy being studied (Halpin and
Troyna, 1994). As Bensimon and Bishop (2012) explain, “The scho-
larship and policy frames that are familiar to decision makers and
practitioners too often fail to ask the ‘race’ question critically and
knowledgeably” (p. 2). We sought to address this gap by employing
throughout the book critical frameworks that center issues of race and
inequality, such as intersectionality, Critical Race Theory (CRT), and
Critical Discourse Analysis. We most commonly used CRT, which
challenges assumptions of objectivity and embraces the understanding
that seemingly neutral laws and policies often have consequences and
outcomes that either sustain or exacerbate existing structural and
institutional racial inequities (Bell, 1980; Solorzano and Yasso,
2002). In particular, we applied the CRT tenets of the permanence of
racism and interest convergence to understand the implications of
POBF policies for students who have been historically underrepre-
sented and for the campuses that primarily enroll them.
Methods
The methods used vary across each chapter, but involve either one or more
of the following strategies: (1) a comparative analysis of publicly available
POBF allocations by institutional type (the state allocation data were cre-
ated and made publically available by each state’s respective higher educa-
tion agency); (2) an analysis of publicly available data on state POBF policy
descriptions, which was conducted through a systematic review and evalua-
tion of documents, including print, electronic, and digital media records,
and artifacts for the purpose of uncovering new knowledge (document
analysis supports our goals to employ a critical framework because this
method provides context, highlights gaps, poses questions that need to be
asked, and verifies or corroborates claims) (Creswell and Plano Clark,
2007); (3) the use of publicly available data trends from sources like The
National Center for Education Statistics, which were used to provide demo-
graphic, enrollment, and completion information for the campuses in each
state; and (4) the use of data from semistructured participant interviews
(Olson, 2011) that lasted approximately 1 hour each. Purposeful sampling

(Patton, 1990) was used to select 11 participants, which included higher
education researchers and leaders, and nonprofit and policy organization
leaders, some of whom have been instrumental in POBF design in their
respective states. The group included four participants representing non-
profit organizations engaged with higher education policy and advocacy, six
academic researchers studying higher education accountability systems, and
one participant serving as a campus leader at a public four-year university
that primarily serves low-income students and students of color in a state
with a POBF policy.
In previous studies comparing POBF models in different states, it has
been noted that contextual features may play a role in how a state’s
model is conceived, supported, and implemented (Dougherty et al.,
2015). Furthermore, it should be noted that for each state there is a
unique history of the use and implementation of POBF, which inevitably
may complicate how institutions respond to the model itself and how
subsequent funding cuts impact the institution. We used a purposive
sampling technique (Maxwell, 2005) in order to include states that were
not only employing a POBF system, but were allocating moderate to
high levels (at least 5%) of higher education allocations to the POBF
model. We also wanted states that provided regional diversity and
included a diverse group of higher education institutions, including
two- and four-year MSIs. Within the discussion of national trends, the
book includes in-depth analyses of existing POBF systems in Ohio,
Florida, Tennessee, and Texas, and proposed models in California,
Texas, and Maryland. There are also states like Tennessee that, due to
their long-standing policy and significant state investment in POBF, are
looked to as models for other states’ policy design, thus we focused on
highly influential states such as this one. Additionally, Texas has a POBF
policy that applies to its two-year campuses, including a robust set of
MSIs that will be addressed in Chapter 4. Texas has a separate proposed
policy that, if adopted, would apply to all four-year MSIs in the state. We
include both analyses because the state of Texas has one of the largest
numbers of public MSIs in the nation, and both the adopted policy for
two-year colleges and the proposed policy for four-year institutions have
the potential to significantly impact a large group of students of color.
Detailed descriptions of how states are examined in the chapters are
provided below.
Chapter Descriptions
The book begins with three studies examining the impact of POBF on
racial equity in four states. Impact is measured in multiple ways, but each
chapter addresses funding allocations to campuses enrolling students of
color and how equity is rewarded in those systems. The second half of the
book focuses on POBF design in existing and proposed policies, and how
states are attempting to account for and reward racial and other types of
equity. The book also addresses policy influencers’ perspectives on how
POBF impacts equity, and how those perspectives impact policy design
and adoption. Finally, the book closes with recommendations for rede-
signing POBF to advance racial equity.
Chapter 2, “Double or Nothing: States Betting It All on Performance and
Outcomes-Based Funding and the Implications for Equity,” addresses the
effects of POBF measures on four-year MSIs in states that have made
a significant investment in performance-based funding measures. Two states,
Ohio and Tennessee, serve as the focus of this chapter, and their POBF data
are analyzed in depth. In both states, a significant amount of school funding is
dependent on performance measures, with Historically Black Colleges and
Universities (HBCUs) faring seemingly well. Considering these outcomes, it
is imperative to understand how states account for equity in their policy to
ensure MSIs are not disadvantaged. Thus, this chapter gives a detailed over-
view of factors considered in both Ohio’s and Tennessee’s funding formulas,
and how those factors specifically affect MSIs in those states.
In Chapter 3, “Reparations and Rewards: Performance and Outcomes-
Based Funding and De Jure to De Facto Segregation in Higher Education
Systems,” the authors use the case study method to explore POBF policies in
Florida and how they either depart from or extend to the once legally
segregated South. In order to understand the social implications of these
policies, the authors first review the history of HBCUs in the South, discussing
the once legally enforced segregation these institutions experienced, the
desegregation cases that acted as legal interventions to help create equality,
and the de facto segregation that often resulted from those interventions.
Finally, this chapter explores whether the POBF policies and resulting
resource allocations work to support the mission of the desegregation cases,
or if these policies are simply another example of de jure segregation that
ultimately results in separate and unequal institutions of higher education.
Chapter 4, “Impacting the Whole Community: Two-Year Minority-
Serving Institutions and Performance and Outcomes-Based Funding in
Texas,” includes an overview of POBF policies in Texas and discusses how

these policies plan to improve student outcomes at specific two-year MSIs.
The chapter also includes a description of the metrics Texas used to
determine POBF allocations among two-year MSIs and two-year non-
MSIs. Texas uses the Student Success Points model for incorporating
POBF into the community college instructional appropriation. The
authors evaluate the impact of the model on student retention and gra-
duation rates at two-year Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs) and Asian
American and Native American Pacific Islander-Serving Institutions
(AANAPISIs) in the state.
In Chapter 5, “A Critical Analysis of the Sociopolitical Climate for POBF
in Three States,” the authors use a critical policy framework to examine the
sociopolitical climate of three states with rapidly increasing populations of
color: Texas, California, and Maryland. These states are examples of active,
failed, and proposed legislation for performance-based funding designed to
increase accountability for better outcomes in higher education. The
authors’ examination offers a critical perspective on how different factors
within a state’s context may shape the ways in which differently resourced
institutions are considered in the creation and adoption of POBF policy.
Chapter 6, “Policy Actors, Advocates, and Critics: The Promotion and
Critique of Performance and Outcomes-Based Funding’s Impact on
Equity,” includes a review of data from a qualitative interview study
conducted with POBF advocates and critics from various organizations
focused on higher education, campus leaders, and academic researchers.
As more states move toward substantial POBF formulas for higher educa-
tion, it is crucial to understand how these policies work to advantage or
disadvantage our most vulnerable student populations. In this chapter, we
explore higher education leaders’ insights and experiences with POBF,
specifically targeting leaders who have been publicly vocal about the ways
the policies have helped or inhibited equity.
Chapter 7, “Between Words and Action: The Problem with POBF
Indictors for Achieving Racial Diversity,” examines the discourse of diver-
sity as it is framed by POBF models. Using critical discourse analysis, we
map the prevalence and parameters of the discourse of diversity within
POBF models. Our findings will illustrate the limits and potential negative
implications of the framing within POBF models for racial diversity and
equity. Recommendations for policymakers, institutional leaders, and
researchers about how POBF can be more reflective and purposeful towards
supporting institutional racial diversity and inclusion goals will be offered.
In Chapter 8, “Toward a New Framework for Funding for Equity,” the

authors propose a framework for using higher education funding and
policy to advance equity issues. This new framework challenges existing
ones that focus on inputs and outputs, ignore issues of institutional
capacity, and rarely involve campus leaders in policy development and
implementation. This chapter also addresses how POBF in particular is
changing the purposes/goals of higher education. Finally, it provides
recommendations for policymakers who are working to advance equity
within existing policy structures.
NOTE
1. Minority Serving Institutions (MSIs) include Historically Black Colleges
and Universities (HBCUs), Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSIs), Tribal
Colleges and Universities (TCUs), and Asian American and Native
American/Pacific Islander-Serving Institutions (AANAPISIs).
REFERENCES
Bell, D. (1980). Brown and the interest-convergence dilemma. In D. Bell (Ed.),
Shades of Brown: New perspectives on school desegregation (pp. 90–106). New
York, NY: Teachers College Press.
Bensimon, E. M., & Bishop, R. (2012). Introduction: Why “critical”? The need
for new ways of knowing. The Review of Higher Education, 36(1), 1–7.
Burke, J. C., & Modarresi, S. (2000). To keep or not to keep performance funding:
Signals from stakeholders. The Journal of Higher Education, 71(4), 432–453.
Creswell, J. W., & Plano Clark, V. L. (2007). Designing and conducting mixed
methods research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Cunningham, A., Park, E., & Engle, J. (2014). Minority-serving institutions:
Doing more with less. Washington, D.C.: Institute for Higher Education
Policy.
Dougherty, K. J., Natow, R. S., Jones, S. M., Lahr, H., Pheatt, L., & Reddy, V.
(2015). Origins of the second wave of performance funding adoptions. In
K. J. Dougherty & R. S. Natow (Eds.), The politics of performance funding for
higher education: Origins, discontinuations, and transformations. Baltimore,
MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Eberle-Sudre, K., Welch, M., & Nichols, A. H. (2015). Rising tide: Do college grad
rate gains benefit all students? Washington, D.C.: The Education Trust.
Halpin, D., & Troyna, B. (Eds.). (1994). Researching education policy: Ethical and
methodological issues. London, UK: Psychology Press.
Hillman, N., Tandberg, D. A., & Fryar, A. (2015). Evaluating the impacts of
“new” performance funding in higher education. Educational Evaluation and
Policy Analysis, 37(4), 1–19.
Jones, T. (2014). Performance funding at MSIs: Considerations and possible mea-
sures for public minority-serving institutions. Atlanta, GA: Southern Education
Foundation.
Maxwell, J. A. (2005). Qualitative research design: An interactive approach
(2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
McLendon, M. K., Hearn, J. C., & Deaton, R. (2006). Called to account:
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for higher education. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 28(1), 1–24.
National Conference of State Legislators. (2015). Performance-based funding for
higher education. Retrieved from http://www.ncsl.org/research/education/
performance-funding.aspx
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Snyder, M. (2015). Driving better outcomes: Typology and principles to inform
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CHAPTER 2
Double or Nothing, States Betting It All

on Performance and Outcomes-Based
Funding and the Implications for Equity
Abstract This chapter addresses the effects of POBF measures on four-year

MSIs in states that have made a significant investment in performance-based
funding measures. Two states, Ohio and Tennessee, serve as the focus of
this chapter, and their POBF data are analyzed in depth. In both states, a
significant amount of school funding is dependent on performance mea-
sures, and HBCUs are faring seemingly well. Considering these outcomes,
it is imperative to understand how states are accounting for equity in their
policy to ensure MSIs are not disadvantaged. Thus, this chapter gives a
detailed overview of factors considered in both Ohio’s and Tennessee’s
funding formulas and how those factors specifically affect MSIs in those
states.
Keywords Equity measures Historically Black Colleges and Universities

(HBCUs) Incentives
INTRODUCTION
In the discussion of POBF, the effect on MSIs–specifically HBCUs, institu-
tions that generally serve underserved students (students of color, and first-
generation and low-income students)–is a hotly debated issue (Cunningham
et al., 2014). Proponents of POBF argue that funding plans increase
institutional effectiveness, ensuring that these universities better serve under-
served students and guarantee on-time graduations (i.e., within six years).
© The Author(s) 2017 13

T. Jones et al., Outcomes Based Funding and Race in Higher
Education, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-49436-4_2
Detractors note that, in order to compete for funds, institutions with missions
to serve underserved students are abandoning those missions and becoming
more selective in their admissions processes. By neglecting underserved stu-
dents, and instead focusing on admitting students with the highest grades and
test scores, they argue that underserved students are being “creamed” out of
the college experience, and while institutions may not want to abandon these
students, they are forced to do in order to survive (Dougherty et al., 2014).
Others participating in the debate explain that, while POBF may have
some unintended negative consequences, including creaming, there are
examples of specific states that are doing a better job of ensuring equity.
Two states commonly identified for building equity into their outcomes-
based formulas are Ohio and Tennessee. Interviewed researchers note
that these states have been deliberate about addressing equity by creating
premiums in the formula for students who have been identified as at-risk
or high needs. The question that remains is how these premiums trans-
late to outcomes for not only underserved students, but for the colleges
and universities explicitly committed to and already serving a student
body comprised of largely low-income students of color. This chapter is
aimed at understanding whether equity is built into these metrics to
simply send the message that the states care about equity, or whether it
actually ensures equitable outcomes for vulnerable student populations.
THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
One consistent complaint from stakeholders about POBF is that it is a one-
size-fits-all solution for increasing institutional performance. This is a parti-
cularly important point when considering publicly funded HBCUs, as they
have a distinct mission and history resulting from the communities they were
founded to serve. The survival of these institutions is critical to underserved
communities of color; some of the students they educate would likely not be
accepted into Predominantly White Institutions (PWIs). Thus, these institu-
tions play a critical role in the struggle for racial equity in higher education.
In order to assess the effects of POBF on HBCUs and racial equity, it is
necessary to use a critical race lens when reviewing funding formulas.
A critical race lens requires researchers to situate their examinations in a
larger history of the struggle for educational opportunity and equity for
people of color. Government policy and, more specifically, HBCUs have
played a pivotal role in ensuring a move toward equity. Thus, it is crucial to
review policy with a critical consideration of racial disparities and opportunity
2 DOUBLE OR NOTHING, STATES BETTING IT ALL ON PERFORMANCE . . . 15
gaps. CRT points to the necessity to analyze policy, considering the long
history of non-White people’s participation (or denial thereof) in the educa-
tion system, and the need for mandated government policy to ensure
participation in higher education (Harper et al., 2009). Considering the
role HBCUs continue to play in ensuring African-American educational
equity–including producing disproportionally high numbers of graduates in
crucial fields like Science, Technology, Engineering, and Maths (STEM) and
education–it is imperative to analyze government policies that involve funding
students to ensure they are not experiencing deleterious outcomes. In this
examination, we explicitly counter the concept of racelessness, addressing the
role White supremacy and racism have played in disadvantaging people of
color, and specifically African-Americans, in higher education (Patton, 2016).
METHODS
This research is a content analysis of POBF data from Ohio and Tennessee,
as well as semi-constructed interviews with POBF stakeholders throughout
the U.S. Data reviewed in this study include higher education expert inter-
view transcripts; state POBF formulas; institution metrics, including state
funding and per-student allocation; student success metrics, including com-
pletion rates and retention rates; and institution demographics, including
endowment, percentage of students of color, undergraduate enrollment,
and Pell student enrollment. Interview transcripts were analyzed from inter-
views conducted with higher education professionals who were actively
involved in the national debate on POBF.
A content analysis is a research method concerned with analyzing
written, verbal, or visual communication messages, and making inferences
about them within their context (Krippendorff, 1980). This content
analysis goes beyond the immediately observed to first analyze the historic
and symbolic qualities of communication, and then make inferences from
the data, deriving themes, concepts, and categories. Content analysis is a
nonlinear process; all data are given the same consideration whether
entered at the beginning or end of the analysis. This analysis is an inductive
process that allows the researcher to develop concepts based on the actual
POBF data, as well as enabling the researcher to detect trends, patterns,
and differences that are not readily seen by users (Krippendorff, 1980).
The first step required in content analysis is design. The design of the
analysis is where researchers introduced the context of the research and valid
criteria for making inferences. Next, the researchers identified sampling units
for the study. After coding sample data, they created categories drawn from
the research. Codes were then used to draw inferences from the data to the
overall themes of the research questions.
Overview of Ohio Formula

In Ohio, POBF determines 100% of state funding for higher education. The
state currently has 38 publicly funded institutions affected by the introduction
of performance-based funding. Of those 38 institutions, Central State
University, an HBCU, is the only MSI. Central State accounts for 2% of
public state-funded institution enrollment in the state, and generally enrolls
1,995 students of color who constitute 98% of the university’s enrollment.
POBF in Ohio is mainly determined by output metrics, including degree
completion, course completion, and doctoral and medical set-asides. As of
2015, the state included an equity output awarding additional weights for
degree completion in STEM fields as well as for at-risk students. The state
defines at-risk students as those who are Pell Grant eligible, Native American,
African-American, or Hispanic, or those who are 25 years of age and older.
Thus, institutions with diverse student bodies, as determined by income, race,
and age, are given additional weights in funding consideration. Ohio is one of
the few states with POBF that has been purposeful about including incentives
for racial equity in their metric (National Conference of State Legislatures,
2015). As one higher education professional explained, “Ohio is the only
[state] that has clearly articulated certain ethnic and racial minority popula-
tions as an access category or a priority category.”
Table 2.1 illustrates how Ohio’s funding formula has evolved since
2013. The state has increased focus on degree completion, decreased
focus on course completion, and begun to include equity considerations,
though they are not included in the formula as a specific category. Rather,
equity is included as a consideration for additional weights throughout
each funding category.
Overview of Central State 2013-1025

Central State University is an HBCU and open-access institution located
in Wilberforce, Ohio, and founded in 1887. It began as a Combined
Normal and Industrial Department at Wilberforce University. The
objectives of this new state-sponsored department were to provide
teacher training and vocational education, and to stabilize these
Table 2.1 Ohio Funding Formula

Funding category FY 2013 FY 2014 FY 2015
Degree completion 18% 50% 50%

Course completion 61% 30% 30%
Doctoral and medical set 20% 19.7% 20%
asides
Historical set asides 1% 0.3% 0%
Other considerations Additional weights Additional weights
awarded for degree awarded for degree
completion in STEM completion in STEM
fields fields and at-risk
student degree
completion
Note: All data were retrieved from the Ohio Board of Regents
programs by assuring a financial base similar to that of other state-

supported institutions. The department grew from a two- to a four-
year program, and in 1947, it legally split from Wilberforce, becoming the
College of Education and Industrial Arts at Wilberforce. The name was
changed in 1951 to Central State College, and in 1965, the institution
achieved university status. The university enrolls 2,036 undergraduates,
98% of whom are students of color. Central State University has an 88%
Pell population, a 53% retention rate, and a 25% six-year graduation rate.
It is important to note that the university’s endowment is $2,009,394,
significantly less than all other publicly funded universities in Ohio.
POBF Outcomes
Under POBF from 2013 to 2014, Central State University suffered a
2.10% decrease in allocation, and per-student funding was reduced from
$3,095.59 to $3,031.76, both below the per-student allocation average
for public universities. Though equity measures that would benefit the
university are now in place, they were not in 2014 (see Table 2.2).
Considerations for Central State University

Using an equity lens to analyze the effects of POBF on Central State
University, it is important to consider a few points. First, Central State
Table 2.2 Central State Percentage Change

Institution Funding prior POBF year 1 % change in Per- Per-
to POBF (2014) allocation student student
(2013) allocation allocation
(2013) (2014)
Central 6,302,628 $6,172,666 −2.10% $3,095.59 3,031.76

State
University
University $156,581,998 $160,294,129 2.40% $6,605.16 6,761.75
of
Cincinnati
Ohio State $331,828,611 $342,015,847 3.10% $7,507.26 7,737.74
University
Mean 68,043,213 73,866,552 70,954,882 $4,643.35 $4,603.29
University has the smallest endowment of all public Ohio universities;

second, before POBF was introduced, Central State University’s per-student
allocation was lower than the state average; and third, the state flagship
university, Ohio State University, which has less than a quarter of the
number of students of color and 100 times the endowment, receives double
the per-student allocation than that of Central State.
In 2015, the Ohio legislature introduced equity measures into the POBF
formula, adding considerations for universities with “at-risk” students. This
introduction can be seen as an attempt to level the playing field for uni-
versities; however, for the state’s sole HBCU, a much stronger push for
equity would be needed to put a school with such a small endowment and a
historically low per-student allocation on the same field as the flagship. In
order for Central State University to compete with other public Ohio
universities, historical underfunding and an acknowledgment of the finan-
cial burden encountered when serving such a high needs population must
first be addressed. Any attempt at equity that does not address the state of
Central State University before the introduction of POBF does little more
than maintain the continuous gap. Additionally, if the goal of those seeking
equity in higher education is to encourage universities to serve a more
diverse student body and support them in their efforts to support that
student body, that goal has not been demonstrated in Ohio’s funding.
Serving by far the most diverse student body of all public universities in
Ohio, Central State University was one of just six of the 38 publicly funded
universities whose funding decreased in the first year of POBF. However,
Ohio State University, with students of color comprising just 18% of the
total student body, boasts the highest per-student allocation in the state,
and saw a 3.10% increase from 2013 to 2014. These statistics illustrate that
diversity was neither encouraged nor rewarded in this formula; thus, equity–
and specifically racial equity–was not supported.
So, while Ohio has funded POBF as a way to encourage universities to
increase outputs based on formula objectives, the formula would need a
significant focus on equity in order to encourage universities that fare well
with the current output metrics based on degree and course completion
and doctoral and medical set-asides to risk lowering completion rates by
enrolling and putting significant funding behind educating at-risk stu-
dents. There is not currently an incentive for PWIs, particularly the larger
state universities, to educate underserved students, as they would risk
lowering their completion rates. With additional weighting awarded for
enrolling at-risk students in 2015, there was an increase in Central State
University’s funding; however, because there is not a specific equity out-
put being considered in a percentage of the formula, institutions that do
not serve a diverse student body, or that serve their diverse students well,
will not necessarily see a decrease in funding.
Thus, while the incentive to increase racial equity is not demonstrated in
the funding outcomes, there is an incentive for Central State University to
mission drift, and either avoid enrolling or “cream” out students who are least
likely to complete their education in order to survive. With 100% of their
funding determined by output metrics, it is critical for Central State to
increase completion rates to avoid continuous decreases in funding and
possibly attempt to increase per-student allocation to compete with other
public universities for enrollment. As one HBCU administrator noted:
So we have taken on a mission drift in some ways; that’s how it really hurts
equity: it allows institutions to take on a mission drift to…the purpose of
majority institutions, which in some ways is the intention of the state
legislature in doing it. But, you know, it’s hard to maintain your original
mission and maintain enrollment and all those things if you start to drift over
to a different standard.
It is important to consider that Ohio calculates completion rates based

on a three-year average; thus, if Central State University does not want to
see three years of decreased funding, they will have to make dramatic
advances in completion rates.
Yearly changes in the POBF formula are also important to consider.

One HBCU administrator coined the performance formulas “moving
goalposts,” explaining that HBCUs must be very decisive about funding
endeavors due to extremely limited budgets and the struggle to shift
focus in order to keep up with the formula. Here, it is also critical to
consider the historic underfunding of HBCUs and preferences for flag-
ship state universities. While Ohio awards extra points for students in
STEM programs, we must consider whether Central State University has
been granted the opportunity to develop STEM programs or the funding
to support them. As one HBCU administrator commented:
It still doesn’t apply resources, and resources are much broader. It’s also
[about whether] you have the right mix of programs . . . How can you
compete in a model that says that you have to have degrees for strategic
emphasis? For example, a lot of states are doing that, where you have to
have all these STEMS, but you won’t give me STEM programs . . . So
thinking about resources is not just monetary, you know? The resources
are also . . . buildings. The resources are also about what programs can I
offer; can I offer graduate degrees? All those are included in resources . . .
Messaging About Racial Equity

Recent studies have found little impact of POBF metrics on university
outputs (Hillman et al., 2014). Thus, we are ultimately analyzing what
state formulas are incentivizing. As such, we have to consider what the
funding formula is saying about how we should serve our most under-
served students: poor students of color. Again, while Ohio state legisla-
tures have now decided to award additional points for at-risk students, it
is unclear whether state universities that are thriving without that addi-
tional weight will be likely to risk output metrics by attempting to serve
at-risk populations. Instead, awarding additional weight for at-risk stu-
dents serves as an attempt to assist Central State University in returning
to its original funding levels, which were already below average. HBCUs,
the universities most concerned with this group of students, seem to have
the most at stake under these metrics; they cannot risk losing resources
needed to serve their high-needs population and have a mission to serve
it. Ultimately, Central State, with its history of low funding and the
smallest endowment in the state, is being incentivized to alter practices
more than any other university in the system. It is also being encouraged
to shift its focus in order to increase degree and course completion and
meet POBF metric demands rather than putting resources behind ser-
vices for their most-difficult-to-serve students (as outlined in the institu-
tion’s mission). On the other hand, the funding formula does not
strongly encourage PWIs to diversify their student base and educate
poor students of color. Thus, the formula’s underlying message is that
these underserved students simply do not matter enough.
Overview of Tennessee Formula

Similar to Ohio, funding in the state of Tennessee is based nearly 100% on
POBF (Snyder, 2015). Tennessee has nine publicly funded institutions, of
which only one, Tennessee State University, is an HBCU. In fact, Tennessee
State University is the sole four-year public MSI in the state. It enrolls 5,375
students of color, 76% of the institution’s overall undergraduate enrollment.
Tennessee’s POBF metrics include both output metrics and progress/
process metrics. Output metrics include degree completion/conferral,
research and grant funding, student transfers out with 12 hours, degrees
per 100 full-time enrolled (FTE) students, and six-year graduation rates.
The progress/process metric refers to students accumulating 24, 48, and
72 hours. The state awards additional weight for adults (students over 25
years of age) and low-income students. The new formula (2015–2020)
also has a premium for academically underprepared students, and weighs
premiums for adults and low-income students more heavily. The higher
education commission also awards improvement grants originally
intended to aid institutions in building capacity to respond to the for-
mula (although they do not quite have that effect in practice).
Table 2.3 illustrates a breakdown of Tennessee’s funding formula. The
state does not have a specific equity metric, but applies additional weight
to each of the six metrics, considering whether institutions are serving
high-needs students.
Overview of Tennessee State University

Tennessee State University is an open-access land-grant HBCU founded
in Nashville, Tennessee, in 1912. In 1909, the Tennessee State General
Assembly created three normal schools, including the Agricultural and
Industrial Normal School, which grew to form Tennessee State
Table 2.3 Tennessee Funding Formula

Tennessee Type of metric
Students accumulating 24 hours, 48 hours, 72 hours Progress/process metrica

Bachelor’s, master’s, doctoral, law (conferred) Output metric
Research and grant funding Output metric
Transfer out with 12 hours Output metric
Degrees per 100 FTE Output metric
Six-year graduation rate Output metric
a
Adults (over 25) and low-income students completing any of the metrics are more heavily weighted.
Additional weights are applied to each outcome depending on the priority and institutional mission.
Points are awarded based on outcomes metrics, which are then multiplied by the Southern Regional
Education Board’s (SREB) average salary to monetize the formula. Fixed costs and the Quality Assurance
program funds (accreditation, student satisfaction, and licensure exam pass rate) are added on.
University. In 1979, after the university’s faculty filed suit (Geier v.

Tennessee), arguing that Tennessee was maintaining a dual system of
higher education based on race, Tennessee courts ordered the merger of
the University of Tennessee at Nashville with Tennessee State University
(Davis, 1993). Today, Tennessee State enrolls approximately 7,073
undergraduate students and maintains an endowment of $40,298,412.
The university has an approximately 65% Pell population, a 62% retention
rate, and a six-year graduation rate of 42%.
POBF Outcomes
Unlike Central State University in Ohio, Tennessee State University
experienced a 2.66% increase in allocation between 2011 and 2012.
With the introduction of POBF metrics in 2012, Tennessee State
University’s per-student funding was increased from $4,037.16 to
$4,147.48. The University has seen an increase in allocation each year
since the introduction of POBF metrics, and the per-student allocation is
the third highest in the state, exceeded only by the University of
Tennessee-Knoxville and the University of Memphis (Tennessee Higher
Education Commission, 2015; College Results, 2015).
Considerations for Tennessee State University

The state of Tennessee is continuously included in discussions of POBF as
an example of an equitable state system of funding higher education, one
that decisively supports underserved students. Though the state does not
have specific considerations for race in its metrics, many experts note that
its additional funding allocations for older (over 25 years old) and low-
income students, and its consideration for institutional missions establish a
system that rewards and supports universities serving high-needs students.
As one HBCU administrator noted, “I think I like Tennessee’s model,
especially looking at . . . the core value of the state, and if the core value of
the state is [that] we believe that we want students to have access to higher
education and we want those students to be a priority in graduation . . . I
think you have to have an equity minded performance metrics model.”
While Tennessee’s introduction of POBF can be understood as an
effort to right both historic and ongoing wrongs in higher education
funding, there are a few similarities between states in terms of flagship
comparisons to smaller state universities. The University of Tennessee-
Knoxville, the state’s flagship, and the University of Memphis, a strong
state institution, boast endowments more than quadruple the amount of
Tennessee State University, and maintain significantly higher per-student
allocations. The University of Tennessee-Knoxville was granted a per-
student allocation of $7,908.76 in 2014, while the University of
Memphis received one of $5,219.14 (Table 2.4).
Consequently, there are a few important considerations in reviewing the
effects of POBF on Tennessee State University, and, ultimately, racial equity
in Tennessee’s higher education system. First, Tennessee has a history of
underfunding Tennessee State University, including a denial of programs
and resources needed to attract students and maintain adequate enrollment.
Second, though Tennessee awards additional weight for older and low-
income students, the University of Tennessee-Knoxville has increased its
funding each year since the introduction of POBF, maintaining a signifi-
cantly higher per-student allocation than Tennessee State University,
though UT serves a drastically less diverse student body, with only 16%
students of color, and a Pell population of approximately 19%.
It seems that the POBF design team addressed historical imbalances in
funding by making equity goals explicit in POBF priorities; however, while
the state addressed class discrimination, they shied away from tying any
equity goals to race. In discussions of metric design for the state, one
administrator explained:
Tennessee institutions get rewarded for students who progress and graduate,
and institutions get an extra bonus or what we call a premium for those
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about whose vales and groves and gleaming temples no living
creature will ever wander. The dove-coloured water that lapped the
rock on which she sat, the colonnade of dark-domed pines along the
brow of the cliff, Ischia and Capri like distant castles of chalcedony,
Vesuvius in a swoon of limpid golden air—all without Bram was but a
vanity of form and colour. The thought of how easily he might have
been preserved from death afflicted her with a madness of rage.
Indifference to the beauty of her surroundings was succeeded by a
wild hatred of that beauty, so well composed, so clear, so bland, and
so serene. But for the folly of one incompetent and unimaginative
fellow man he might have been sitting beside her on this rock, sitting
here in this murmurous placidity of earth and sea and sky, gazing out
across this crystalline expanse, his hand in hers, their hearts beating
together where now only his watch ticked dryly. Nancy longed to
weep; but she could not weep in this brightness. Yet she must either
weep or fling herself from this rock and sink down into the water at
her feet, into that tender water with the hue and the voice and the
softness of a dove. She let a loose stone drop from her hand and
watched it sink to the enamelled floor of the bay. How shallow it was!
She should never drown here. She must seek another rock round
which the water swirled deep and indigo-dark, water in which a stone
would flicker for a few moments in pale blue fire and be lost to sight
long before it reached the bottom. Nancy left the rock where she had
been sitting and tried to climb upward along the cliff’s edge in search
of deep water at its base. And while she climbed her clothes became
scented by the thickets of rosemary. There appeared to her
distraught mind the image of Bram as Laertes and of the actress
who had played Ophelia saying to him, “There’s rosemary, that’s for
remembrance.” She herself had been understudying the Queen and
had been standing in the wings to watch how the mad-scene was
taken. She could see the expression of mingled horror and pity on
Bram’s face, as he took the sprig of rosemary from his sister’s hand.
Pray, love, remember.
“Bram,” she cried aloud in an agony of repentance. “I didn’t mean
it. I’m not really mad. I won’t drown myself. I won’t really.”
Then she flung herself face downward among the bushes of
rosemary and wept. For an hour she lay hidden from the sun in that
bitter-sweet grey-green gloom of the cliff’s undergrowth until at last
her tears ceased to flow and she could stand up bravely to face
again the future. More lovely now was the long sweep of the
Parthenopean shore, more lucid the wash of golden air, richer and
more profound the warm wintry Southern peace; and she standing
there among the rosemary was transmuted by the timelessness of
her grief into a timeless figure that might haunt for ever that calm and
classic scene.
The last sunset stain had faded from the cloudy cap of Vesuvius,
and the street-lamps were already twinkling when Nancy got back to
Naples. She went into a church, and there in a dark corner prayed to
be forgiven for that brief madness when she had wished to take her
life. She sat for a long while, thinking of happy times with Bram,
soothed by the continuous coming and going of poor people to visit
the Crib, all lit up at the other end of the church. She knelt once more
to beg that all that was lost of Bram’s life might be found again in his
daughter’s; and her ultimate prayer was as always for strength to
devote herself entirely to Letizia’s happiness.
Thus passed the fourth anniversary of the Clown’s death.
CHAPTER XXII
SORRENTO
Two days after her visit to Posilipo Nancy came back from her
singing-lesson to discover John Kenrick at the pensione.
“I found that I could get away from England for a few days,” he
announced. “And I thought I’d come and ascertain for myself how
you really were getting on.”
“Very badly,” Nancy told him.
“So your last letter implied. But Gambone always errs on the side
of discouragement. I’m going to have a chat with him on the way
back to Bertolini’s. Will you dine with me there to-night? Or, no, wait
a minute. I’ll come down and fetch you, and we’ll eat at a more
native restaurant and go to the opera, or are you tired of the opera?”
Nancy had to confess that she had not yet been to San Carlo.
Kenrick was astonished.
“I couldn’t very well go alone, and I haven’t had anybody I could
ask to go with me,” she explained.
“You’ve been feeling lonely,” he said quickly. “And you’re looking a
bit overstrained. Has Gambone been working you too hard?”
“I doubt if he thinks I’m worth working very hard,” said Nancy.
“Nonsense! I’m going to find out exactly what he does think about
your voice and your prospects. I wager you’ll be pleasantly surprised
to hear what a great opinion he has of you.”
Kenrick left her soon after this, and then Nancy realised how
terribly lonely she had been ever since she came to Naples. A few
weeks ago she would have been vexed by the arrival of her patron. It
would have embarrassed her. It might even have made her suspect
him of ulterior motives. But his arrival now was a genuine pleasure,
and if only he came away from Maestro Gambone with good news of
her progress, she should be happier than she had been for months.
Even an unfavourable report would be something definite, and in that
case she could return to England immediately. Loneliness in
beautiful surroundings was much harder to bear than fellowship in
ugliness. To go back to playing adventuresses in the black country
would have its compensations.
When Kenrick returned to take her out to dinner, there was a smile
on his sombre face. He put up his monocle and looked at Nancy
quizzically.
“You’re a nice one!”
“What’s the matter? What have I done?”
“I thought you told me you weren’t getting on?”
“I didn’t think I was.”
“Well, Gambone says you’re a splendid pupil, that you work very
hard, that you have a glorious natural voice, and that if he can keep
you another six months he’ll guarantee you an engagement at San
Carlo next autumn. What more do you want?”
Nancy caught her breath.
“You’re joking!”
“I’m not indeed. I was never more serious.”
“But why didn’t he say something to me?”
“Gambone is a Neapolitan. Gambone is a realist. About women he
has no illusions. He thinks that the more he beats them the better
they’ll be. He only told me all this after exacting a promise not to
repeat it to you for fear you would be spoilt and give up working as
well as you’re working at present. I reproached him with not having
looked after you socially, and he nearly jumped through the ceiling of
his apartment.”
“‘She is here to work,’ he shouted. ‘She is not here to amuse
herself.’ ‘But you might at least have managed to find her an escort
for the opera.’ And I told him that you had not yet visited San Carlo.
‘Meno male!’ he squealed. I presume your Italian has at least got as
far as knowing that meno male means the less harm done. ‘Meno
male that she has not filled her head with other people’s singing. She
has enough to do with her practising, enough to do to learn how to
speak and pronounce the only civilised tongue that exists for a
singer.’ I told him that you had been lonely, and what do you think he
replied? ‘If she’s lonely, let her cultivate carnations. Garofani!’ he
yelled at the top of his voice. ‘Believe me, my good sir, carnations
are a thousand times more worth while than men and ten thousand
times more worth while than women.’ ‘Even good contraltos?’ I
laughed. ‘Sicuro! Or sopranos, either,’ the old villain chuckled.”
“Well, in some moods I would agree with him,” Nancy said.
“Anyway, whatever the old cynic may say, he has a profound belief
in your future. When he was ushering me out of his apartment ...”
“Oh, he ushered you out?” Nancy laughed. “He always pushes me
out.”
“He would! But listen, he took my arm and said, with a twinkle in
his bright black eyes, ‘So you heard her sing and knew she had a
voice?’ I bowed. ‘Siete un conoscente, caro. Felicitazioni.’”
The opera played at San Carlo that night was La Traviata. Nancy,
not oppressed by the sound and sight of a contralto singing and
acting far better than she could ever hope to sing and act, thoroughly
enjoyed it. The Violetta was a delicate and lovely creature so that,
even if her coloratura did lack something of the finest quality and
ease, her death was almost intolerably moving. Alfredo was played
by an elderly tenor into whose voice the vibrato of age had already
insinuated itself. He was, however, such a master of all the graces
that neither his appearance nor the fading of his voice seemed to
matter a great deal. In compensation for an elderly tenor, the heavy
father was played by a very young barytone with a voice of glorious
roundness and sonority. Kenrick was much excited by this
performance and prophesied for this new singer a success all over
Europe as round and sonorous as his voice. He declared that he had
never heard Germont’s great aria “Di Provenza” given so well.
After the performance they went to supper at one of the popular
restaurants near the opera house, where Kenrick discoursed upon
the æsthetic value of La Traviata.
“It’s the fashion to decry it as a piece of tawdry and melodramatic
sensationalism, but to my mind it fulfills perfectly Aristotle’s
catharsis.”
“That sounds reassuring,” Nancy laughed. “But I’m afraid I don’t in
the least understand what it means.”
“Aristotle found an æsthetic value in the purging of the emotions.
Well, at the end of Traviata we are left with the feeling that music
could not express more completely the particular set of emotions that
are stirred by the story of Alfredo, Violetta, and Germont. No critic
has ever done justice to the younger Dumas’s Dame aux Camélias
either as a novel or as a play. Yet both they and the opera founded
upon them have a perennial vitality so marked as almost to tempt me
to claim for them an eternal vitality. The actuality of Traviata is so
tremendous that on the first night of its production in Venice it was a
failure because the soprano playing Violetta was so fat as to revolt
the audience’s sense of fact. This seems to me highly significant.
You cannot imagine an operatic version of, let us say, Wuthering
Heights being hissed off the stage because the Heathcliff revolted
any audience’s sense of fact. Now Wuthering Heights much more
nearly approximates to melodrama than La Dame aux Camélias.
The pretentious spiritualism with which a sordid tale of cruelty,
revenge, and lust is decked out cannot hide from the sane observer
the foolish parody of human nature presented therein. It has been
acclaimed as a work of tragic grandeur and sublime imagination as if
forsooth grandeur of imagination were to be measured by the
remoteness of protagonists or plot from recognisable life. Let us
grant that Traviata exhibits a low form of life——”
“Or a form of low life,” Nancy interposed.
“No, no, don’t make a joke of it! I feel seriously and strongly on this
subject,” Kenrick averred. “But a live jelly-fish is a great deal more
marvellous and much more beautiful than a stuffed lion. Nothing
really matters in a work of art if it lacks vitality. I would not say that
Wuthering Heights lacked all vitality, but its vitality is slight, indeed it
is almost imperceptible except to the precious and microscopic taste
of the literary connoisseur. The vitality of La Dame aux Camélias is
startling, so startling indeed as to repel the fastidious and academic
mind just as a don would be embarrassed were his attentions
solicited by a gay lady outside the St. James’s Restaurant. The
trouble is that the standards of criticism are nearly always set up by
the middle-aged. La Dame aux Camélias is a book for youth. We
have most of us lived not wisely and not well in our youth, and
middle-age is not the time to judge that early behaviour. Let it be
remembered that the follies of our youth are usually repeated when
we are old—not always actually, but certainly in imagination. An old
man should be the best judge of La Dame aux Camélias. Well, if that
is a vital book, and just because of its amazing vitality, a great book,
Traviata is a great opera, because, unlike that much inferior opera
Aïda, it is impossible to imagine any other music for it. All that could
be expressed by that foolish dead love, all the sentimental dreams of
it, all the cruelty of it, and the sweetness and the remorse, all is
there. We may tire of its barrel-organ tunes, but we tire in middle-age
of all youth’s facile emotions. We can scarcely imagine ourselves, let
us say, waiting two hours in the rain for any woman. We should be
bored by having to find the chocolates that Cleopatra preferred, and
we would not escort even Helen of Troy to the nearest railway
station. But fatigue is not necessarily wisdom, and so much that we
reject in middle-age is due to loss of resiliency. We cannot react as
we once could to the demands of the obvious excitement. We are, in
a word, blasé.”
Nancy felt that she was rushing in like a fool, but she could not sit
here and watch Kenrick blow away all argument in the wreaths of his
cigarette smoke. She had to point out one flaw in his remarks.
“But when I said that I would never love again and implied that I
knew what I was talking about, because I was twenty-eight, you
warned me that a woman’s most susceptible age was thirty-three.”
“Thirty-three is hardly middle-age,” said Kenrick. “I was thinking of
the chilly forties. Besides, you can’t compare women with men in this
matter. The old saw about a woman being as old as she looks and a
man as old as he feels is always used by women as an illustration of
the advantage of being a man. As a matter of fact, the advantage
lies all the other way. It is so much easier to look young than to feel
young. A woman is never too old to be loved. You can hardly
maintain that a man is never to old to love. I doubt if a man over
thirty ever knows what love means.”
“Och, I never heard such a preposterous statement,” Nancy
declared. “Why, think of the men who cherish hopeless passions all
their lives.”
“For my part I can never understand a man’s cherishing a
hopeless passion,” he declared. “I should feel so utterly humiliated
by a woman’s refusal of her love that my own passion would be
killed by it instantly. And the humiliation would be deepened by my
knowledge of woman’s facility for falling in love, which is, of course,
much greater than a man’s, as much greater as her fastidiousness
and sensitiveness are less. To be refused by a woman, when one
sees on what monstrous objects she is prepared to lavish her
affection, seems to me terrible. Equally I do not understand why a
woman, who after her childhood so rarely cherishes a hopeless
passion that will never be returned, is always prepared to cherish the
much more hopeless passion of continuing to love a man after he
has ceased to love her. I suppose it’s because women are such
sensualists. They always regard love as a gratification of self too
long postponed, and they continue to want it as children want broken
toys and men fail to give up smoking. The famous women who have
held men have held them by their infinite variety. Yet the one quality
in a lover that a woman finds it hardest to forgive is his variety.”
“Och, I don’t agree at all,” Nancy declared breathlessly. “In fact I
don’t agree with anything you’ve said about love or men or women. I
think it’s a great pity that you have let yourself grow middle-aged.
You wouldn’t be able to have all these ideas if you were still capable
of feeling genuine emotion. I’m not clever enough to argue with you
properly. No woman ever can argue, because either she feels so
strongly about a subject that all her reasons fly to the wind, or, if she
doesn’t feel strongly, she doesn’t think it worth while to argue and, in
fact, finds it a boring waste of time. But I feel that you are utterly
wrong. I know you are. You’re just wrong. And that’s all there is to be
said. My husband had more variety than any man I ever knew, and I
loved his variety as much as I loved every other single one of his
qualities.”
There were tears in her big deep-blue eyes, the tears that always
came to them when she spoke of Bram, and flashing tears of
exasperation as well, at being unable to defeat her companion’s
cynicism, for all his observations seemed to her to be the fruit of a
detestable and worldly-wise cynicism, the observations of a man
who has never known what it was to suffer or to lose anything in the
battle of life.
“Forgive me if I spoke thoughtlessly,” said Kenrick. “I get carried
away by my tongue whenever I go to an opera. Operas stimulate
me. They are the reductio ad absurdum of art. I seem always to get
down to the bedrock of the æsthetic impulse at the opera. We are
deluded by a tragedy of Æschylus into supposing that art is
something greater than it is, something more than a sublimation of
childhood’s games, something comparable in its importance to
science. In opera we see what a joke art really is. We know that in
the scroll of eternity the bottle-washer of a great chemist is a more
conspicuous minuscule than the greatest artist who ever shall be.”
“I think I’m too tired to listen to you any longer,” Nancy said. “I
really don’t understand anything you’re talking about now, and even
if I did I feel sure I wouldn’t agree with you.”
Kenrick laughed.
“I plead guilty to being a chatterbox to-night. But it was partly your
fault. You shouldn’t have sat there looking as if you were listening
with such intelligence. But let’s leave generalisations and come to
particulars. Gambone says a little holiday will do you good.”
“I don’t believe you,” Nancy laughed. “Maestro Gambone never
indulged in theories about his pupils’ well-being. I simply don’t
believe you.”
“Yes, really he did. I asked him if he did not think that you would
be all the better for a short rest, and he agreed with me. Now, why
don’t you come to Sorrento with me and see in this New Year that is
going to be your annus mirabilis?”
Nancy looked at him quickly.
“You’re thinking of the proprieties? There are no proprieties at
Sorrento. You want a change of air. I promise not to talk about art.
We’ll just take some good walks. Now don’t be missish. Treat me as
a friend.”
Yet Nancy still hesitated to accept this invitation. She had no
reason that she could express to herself, still less put into words. It
was merely an irrational presentiment that she should regret going to
Sorrento.
“Why don’t you answer?” he pressed.
“I was only wondering if it was wise to interrupt my lessons,” she
told him lamely.
“But you wouldn’t lose more than a couple. We shan’t be away
more than five days. I’ve got to be back in London by the fifth of
January.”
“All right. I’d really love to come if Gambone won’t think I’m being
lazy.”
Kenrick drove her back to the Via Virgilio, and next morning they
took the boat for Sorrento.
They stayed in an old sun-crumbled albergo built on one of the
promontories, the sheer cliff of which had been reinforced by
immense brick arches raised one above another against its face, so
that the soft tufaceous rock, which rather resembled rotten cheese,
should not collapse and plunge albergo, tangled garden, and pine-
dark promontory into the inky blue water two hundred feet below.
Sorrento looks north, and the proprietor of the albergo, a toad-faced
little man with sandy hair and a food-stained frock coat much too
large for him, suggested that his new guests would be more
comfortable at this season in rooms with an aspect away from the
sea. The south aspect of the albergo formed three sides of an
oblong, and the doors of all the rooms opened on a balcony paved
with blue and green porcelain tiles and covered with the naked grey
stems of wistaria, the convolutions of which resembled the throes of
huge pythons. The view looked away over orange groves to the
Sorrentine hills, and particularly to one conical bosky peak on which
the wooden cross of a Camaldolese congregation was silhouetted
against the sky. In the garden below the balcony tazetta narcissus
and China roses were in bloom. There were not many other guests
in the albergo, and these were mostly elderly English and American
women, all suffering from the delusion that Italy was the cheapest
country on earth and from a delusion of the natives that all English
and Americans were extremely wealthy.
Kenrick apologised for bringing Nancy to the Albergo del Sole
rather than taking her to one of the two fashionable hotels.
“But we can always go and feed at the Tramontano or the
Victoria,” he pointed out. “And there’s a charm about this
tumbledown old place. I was here once ten years ago and always
promised myself a return visit. Of course, Winter is not the time to be
in Sorrento. It’s not till the oranges come into their glory, about
Easter, that one understands the raptures of the great men who have
visited this place. The fascination of Sorrento is a stock subject with
all the letter-writers of our century.”
“Och, but I would much rather be staying here,” Nancy assured
him. “I think this place is so attractive.”
“It would be more attractive in Spring when the creamy Banksia
roses are in blossom and hung with necklaces of wistaria. It is a little
melancholy now. Yet the sun strikes warm at midday. I’ve told them
to make up a roaring fire of chestnut logs in your room.”
“They’ve certainly done so, and it’s as cosy as it can be.”
“I only hope the weather stays fine for our holiday,” said Kenrick,
putting up his monocle and staring an appeal to the tender azure of
the December sky.
And the weather did stay fine, so that they were able to drive or
walk all day and escape from the narrow walled alleys of Sorrento,
alleys designed for summer heats, when their ferns and mosses
would refresh the sun-tired eye, but in Winter damp and depressing,
soggy with dead leaves.
On the last day of the old year they climbed up through the olives
until they reached an open grassy space starred thick with the
tigered buff and mauve blooms of a myriad crocuses, the saffron
stamens of which burned like little tongues of fire in the sunlight.
“Forgive the melancholy platitude,” said Kenrick, “but I am
oppressed by the thought of our transience here, and not only our
transience, but the transience of all the tourists who sojourn for a
while on this magic coast. The song of a poet here is already less
than the warble of a passing bird; the moonlight is more powerful
than all the vows of all who have ever loved in Sorrento; no music
can endure beside the murmur of the Tyrrhenian. ‘Here could I live,’
one protests, and in a day or two the railway-guide is pulled out, and
one is discussing with the hotel porter how to fit in Pompeii on the
way back to Naples. Ugh! What is it that forbids man to be happy?”
“Well, obviously most of the people who visit Sorrento couldn’t
afford to stay here indefinitely,” said Nancy, who always felt
extremely matter-of-fact when her companion began to talk in this
strain.
“Yes, but there must be many people like myself who could.”
“Some do.”
“Ah, but not in the right way. They dig out a house-agent and
inspect eligible villas and behave exactly as if they were moving from
Bayswater to Hampstead, which in fact they are. I don’t want to
adjust these surroundings to myself. I want to become an integral
part of them. I should like to stay on in the Albergo del Sole without
writing letters or getting letters. I should like to be sitting here when
these crocuses have faded, and the grass is wine-stained by
anemones or silvery with asphodels. I should like to watch the cistus
petals fluttering to the hot earth, and to lie for hours listening to the
cicali, lie and dream all through the Summer as still and hot as a
terra-cotta shard, lie and dream until the black sirocco whips the
orchards and spits into my face the first drops of autumn rain. But if I
had to make arrangements for my business and explain that my
nerves required a long rest, all the savour would be taken out of my
whim. Oh, dio, I am as full to-day of yearnings for the au delà as a
French symbolist, or a callow German who sees the end of his
Wanderjahre looming.”
All the way back to the town Kenrick walked along beside Nancy in
a moody silence. She felt that perhaps she had been too
discouraging, and just before they emerged from the last of the
olives she put a hand on his arm and said:
“Will it do anything to console you if I tell you how perfectly I have
enjoyed these days here? I’m not an eloquent person, Mr. Kenrick.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake call me John. Haven’t you noticed I’ve
been calling you Nancy all this time?”
“I’ll try to call you John,” she promised. “But it’s terribly hard for me
to call people by their Christian names. I’m not an eloquent person ...
John. In fact, I’m sort of tongue-tied. But surely you must realise
what you’ve done for me.”
He stopped abruptly and looked into her eyes.
“Have I really done much?”
“Why, you know you have. You know you have. I was a touring
actress without an idea of ever being anything else, and you’ve given
me the chance to be something much more than that.”
“That’s all I’ve managed to do?” Kenrick asked.
“Isn’t it enough?”
He seemed to be striving either to say something or not to say
something, Nancy did not know which. Then he shivered.
“Come along, it’s beginning to turn chilly as the sun gets behind
the hills. Let’s go and have a fashionable tea at the Victoria, and
book a table for to-night.”
After dinner they sat in the lounge and watched the sophisticated
tarantella that was splashed on the tourists three times a week as
from a paint-pot of gaudy local colour. Followed luscious songs and
mandolinades, and shortly before midnight the capo d’anno
procession arrived to sing the song of the New Year. It was
accompanied by a band of queer primitive instruments; but the most
important feature of the celebration was a bay-tree, which was
banged on the floor to mark the time of the rhythmical refrain
throughout the song’s many verses. Everybody drank everybody’s
else health; the elderly English and American women twinkled at the
inspiration of an extra glass of vermouth; all was music and jollity.
The moonlight was dazzling when Kenrick and Nancy left the
hotel, the air coldly spiced with the scent of mandarins. He proposed
a walk to shake off the fumes, and, though she was feeling sleepy
after a long day in the open air followed by the long evening’s
merrymaking, Nancy had not the heart to say that she would rather
go home to bed. They wandered through the alleys now in darkness,
now in a vaporous sheen of grey light, now full in the sharp and
glittering eye of the moon. The naked arms of the walnut-trees and
figs shimmered ashen-pale. Here and there a gust of perfume from
the orange-groves waylaid them to hang upon its sweetness like
greedy moths. After twenty minutes of meandering through these
austere blazonries of argent and sable they turned back toward the
albergo and followed their shadows away from the soaring moon,
their little shadows that hung round their feet like black velvet, so rich
seemed they and so substantial upon the dusty silver of the path.
All was still when they reached the albergo, and the porcelain tiles
of the balcony were sparkling in the moonshine like aquamarines.
“Good night,” said Nancy, pausing in the doorway of her room.
“And once more a happy New Year!”
Kenrick stood motionless for an instant. Then he stepped forward
quickly into the doorway and caught Nancy to him.
“You can’t say good night like this,” he gasped.
She struggled to free herself from the kiss he had forced upon her.
In her physical revolt against him the lips pressed to hers felt like the
dry hot hide of some animal.
“Let me go! Let me go!” she choked. “Och, why are you doing this
and spoiling everything?”
In escaping from his arms Nancy had gone right into her room.
Kenrick followed her in and, shutting the door behind him, began to
plead with her.
“Let me come and sit in here for a while. I won’t try to kiss you
again. Let’s pull up a couple of chairs to the fire and talk.”
“Och, do go away,” Nancy begged. “There’s nothing to talk about
now, and it’s late, and I feel so unhappy about this.”
All the time she was talking she was searching everywhere for the
matches to light the lamp and illuminate with its common sense this
mad situation created by moonshine and shadows and flickering
logs.
“You’ve surely realised that I’ve been madly in love with you ever
since I saw you at Bristol?” he demanded.
Nancy found the matches and lit the lamp. Then she turned to face
Kenrick.
“Of course I didn’t realise it. Do you suppose I would have let you
pay for my singing-lessons and all this, if I’d thought you were in love
with me? I see it now, and I could kill myself for being so dense. And
me supposing it was all on account of my fine voice! Och, it’s too
humiliating. Just an arrangement between you and Gambone, and
me to be so mad as to believe in you.”
“Now don’t be too unjust, Nancy,” he said. “You have a fine voice,
and even if you turn me down as a lover I’m still willing to see you
through with your training.”
“I thought you knew so much about women,” she stabbed. “You
don’t really suppose that I’d accept another penny from you now?”
“Why not?”
“Why not? Well, I won’t ever be your mistress, and since it was the
hope of getting me for your mistress that made you send me out
here—you can’t deny that, now, can you?—well, since it was that
and I can’t oblige, you don’t suppose I’ll accept your charity?”
“But I tell you I do think you have a fine voice, and so does
Gambone. I swear to you he does. This hasn’t been a trick to get you
out to Italy, and nothing else; though it would be absurd to pretend
that I’d have done what I did for you for any woman with a fine
voice.”
“Why couldn’t you have told me there was a price attached? It
wasn’t fair of you to let me come out here without knowing that.”
Nancy was on the verge of breaking down; but she knew that if
she cried Kenrick would take the opportunity of such weakness to
attempt a reconciliation, and she was determined to finish with him
for ever to-night.
“I suppose it wasn’t,” he admitted. “But you must remember that I
didn’t know you then as I know you now, and perhaps I assumed that
you were like most women, for I swear most women would have
realised that I was in love.”
“But it’s such a damnable way of being in love!” Nancy exclaimed.
“If you loved me, how could you think that I’d pretend such
innocence? To make myself more interesting? Well, I suppose if you
go through life judging women by your own ideas about them, you
would have discovered by now that all of them were frauds.”
“Listen, Nancy,” Kenrick said. “Is it because you don’t love me that
you refuse me as a lover? Or is it because of the conventions?
Would you marry me, if I could marry you?”
“Do you mean if I weren’t an actress?” she said, blazing.
“No, no,” he replied impatiently. “For God’s sake don’t talk like that.
What on earth difference could that conceivably make? I can’t marry
you, because I’m married already, and because my wife would die
rather than divorce me. But would you marry me?”
“No, never in this world! I won’t be your mistress, because I don’t
love you, and even if I did love you a little, I wouldn’t be your
mistress, because I could never love you as much as I loved my
husband and I wouldn’t do anything to hurt his child and mine.”
“Are you sure you don’t love me? Are you sure the second and
more sentimental reason isn’t the true one?”
“I’m so far from loving you,” she declared, “that I couldn’t even
hate you. Now perhaps you’ll go away and leave me alone?
Remember what you said the other night in Naples about cherishing
hopeless passions? Or was that just all nothing but beautiful talk?”
“Why don’t you love me?” he asked.
“I told you once that I could never love anybody again. You had a
theory about that, I remember. Now do go away, and leave me
alone.”
“Forgive me, Nancy.”
“I’ll forgive you if you let me know to a farthing what you’ve paid for
me from the moment I left London.”
“That’s not forgiveness,” he said. “You needn’t be cruel. After all,
it’s not unforgivable to love a woman. I loved you from the beginning.
I haven’t just taken advantage of moonlight to indulge myself. At
least, let me continue paying for your lessons. I’m going back to
England at once; I’ll promise not to worry you any more. Do, Nancy,
please do let me see you through!”
She shook her head.
“I couldn’t.”
“You’re sacrificing yourself for pride.”
“It’s not entirely pride,” she said. “There’s pride in it, but it’s—oh, I
can’t explain things as you can. Please tell me what I’ve cost you. I
have enough, I think, to pay you back.”
“I won’t accept it,” he declared. “And for no reason whatever can
you prove to me that I ought to accept repayment. I persuaded you
to leave your engagement. You believed in my sincerity. And I was
sincere. I think it’s wrong of you to give up your singing. But I know
it’s useless to argue about that with you. What I have paid is quite
another matter, and I simply refuse to accept repayment. If you can’t
even succeed in hating me, you’ve no right to ask me to do
something for which I must hate myself.”
“Yes, but you only used my voice as an excuse for the rest,” Nancy
argued. “Your main thought in getting me out to Italy was to make me
your mistress. Apparently I must have given you the impression that
your trouble was worth while. Yet when you invited me to come with
you to Sorrento on this holiday, why did you ask me to treat you as a
friend? As a matter of fact, the idea that you wanted to make love to
me did pass through my mind, but you drove away the fancy by the
way you spoke, as if you knew that I suspected your reasons and
wanted to reproach me for my nasty mind. Did you or did you not
expect that I would give myself to you here?”
“It was here that I first thought that you were growing fond of me,”
Kenrick said evasively. “I can tell you the exact moment. It was
yesterday afternoon when you put your hand on my arm.”
“I was growing fond of you. But not in that kind of way,” she said.
“Naturally I was growing fond of you. You had, as I thought, done a
great deal for me. I was grateful; and when you seemed depressed I
wanted to comfort you.”
“Nancy, let’s cut out to-night and blame the moon.”
She shook her head.
“I can’t. I know myself too well. Just to give you pleasure because I
owe you a great deal, I would like beyond anything to cut out to-night
and go on with my singing. But the moment I was alone I’d begin to
fret. I haven’t enough confidence in my success as a singer. For one
thing, now that you’ve told me that you were attracted to me
personally at Bristol I feel that you’ve thought my voice better than it
is. Suppose at the end of another five or six months Gambone
shouldn’t consider me worthy of being pushed along? I’d have
nothing to fall back upon. I’d have failed myself and my daughter and
you, artistically, and I’d have failed you in the only way that might
compensate you for that failure.”
“But if the risk is mine and I’m willing to accept it, why must you
worry?”
“It’s no good. I know myself. I know that I couldn’t endure taking
your money under those conditions.”
“But you aren’t seriously proposing to give up your lessons and
leave Naples simply because I’ve told you that I’m in love with you?”
“Yes, yes, I am. I’m going back to-morrow.”
“But how will you explain your sudden return to your friends?”
“I haven’t so very many friends to bother about. But I shall tell
those I have that my voice wasn’t good enough to make it worth
while going on.”
Kenrick flung himself into a chair and poked the logs savagely.
“You make me feel such a clumsy brute,” he groaned. “Can’t I find
any argument that will make you change your mind?”
“None.”
“But at any rate you aren’t serious about paying me back the
trifling sum I’ve spent on you?”
“I am indeed.”
“Nancy, I’ve taken my disappointment fairly well; you can’t deny
that. I beg you to be kind and not insist on this repayment. I promise
not to inflict myself or my hopes upon you. I’ll do anything you tell
me, if only you’ll be generous over this. Your only motive for repaying
me can be pride. Use your imagination and try to realise what it will
mean for me if you insist. I do love you. I might have pretended that
the magic of this night had turned my senses for a moment, but by
being sincere I’ve ruined any hope I had for the future. My dream is
shattered. Be generous.”
He looked so miserable, hunched up over the fire, that Nancy
fought down her pride and agreed to accept as a present what he
had already done. She was inclined to regret her weakness a
moment later, when she saw that her surrender went far to restore
Kenrick’s optimism about their future relations. He began to talk
about the beauty of Italy in the Spring, of the peach blossoms in
March and the orange-groves in April. The mistake was in having
sent her out in Winter. In Spring she must think over everything and
come out again. And so on, and so on until Nancy could have
screamed with exasperation at his inability to comprehend the finality
of her decision.
It was nearly two o’clock before Kenrick left Nancy’s room. The
stress of argument had chased away her fatigue; but in Kenrick’s
new mood she did not dare stand on the balcony and pore upon the
hills of Sorrento floating like islands in that sea of moonshine. He
was capable of supposing that she had changed her mind and of
expecting the fulfilment of his passion. The fire had died down to a
heap of glowing ashes. The room was heavy with the smoke of
Kenrick’s incessant Macedonian cigarettes. So this was the end of
Italy. Yet she did not feel more than a twinge or two of sentimental
regret for the loveliness of earth and sea and sky that she was
deliberately abandoning. She had the happiness of knowing that she
had been true to herself. A dull, a bourgeois virtue perhaps for a
rogue and a vagabond; but Nancy, knowing all that she now wanted
from life, did not feel sorry for that self to which she had been true.
Three days later Italy seemed as far away as paradise, when the
cliffs of England loomed through a driving mist of dirty southerly
weather.

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Outcomes Based Funding and Race in

Higher Education Can Equity be Bought

Uplifting Gender and Sexuality Education Research

University of Nike How Corporate Cash Bought American

Race Politics and Education in Brazil Affirmative

Race Equity and Education Sixty Years from Brown 1st

Policy Analysis of Structural Reforms in Higher

Family background and university success differences in

Dismantling Race in Higher Education: Racism, Whiteness

Enhancing Inclusive Instruction: Student Perspectives

Kayla C. Elliott LaToya Russell Owens

Amanda E. Assalone Denisa Gándara

ISBN 978-3-319-49435-7 ISBN 978-3-319-49436-4 (eBook)

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2017

Cover illustration: Cover pattern © Melisa Hasan

Printed on acid-free paper

This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by Springer Nature

1 Show Me the Outcomes! The Emergence of Performance

PART I Understanding the Impact of POBF on Racial Equity

2 Double or Nothing, States Betting It All on Performance

3 Reparations and Rewards: Performance and Outcomes-

4 Impacting the Whole Community: Two-Year

PART II Examining POBF Design, Adoption, & Revision

5 A Critical Analysis of the Sociopolitical Climate for POBF

6 Policy Actors, Advocates, and Critics: The Promotion

7 Between Words and Action: The Problem with POBF

8 Toward a New Framework for Funding for Equity 145

Fig. 4.1 Major Sources of Operating Revenue for Community

Table 2.1 Ohio Funding Formula 17

Understanding the Impact of POBF

Show Me the Outcomes! The Emergence

Abstract This chapter explains the evolution and characteristics of perfor-

Keywords Performance funding Chapter overview Outcomes-based

© The Author(s) 2017 1

ofﬁcials are pressured to answer questions about student outcomes and

HOW DOES POBF WORK?

POBF’S SIGNIFICANCE AND IMPACT

(Olson, 2011) that lasted approximately 1 hour each. Purposeful sampling

Texas,” includes an overview of POBF policies in Texas and discusses how

In Chapter 8, “Toward a New Framework for Funding for Equity,” the

Double or Nothing, States Betting It All

Abstract This chapter addresses the effects of POBF measures on four-year

Keywords Equity measures Historically Black Colleges and Universities

© The Author(s) 2017 13

Overview of Ohio Formula

Overview of Central State 2013-1025

Table 2.1 Ohio Funding Formula

Degree completion 18% 50% 50%

programs by assuring a ﬁnancial base similar to that of other state-

Considerations for Central State University

Table 2.2 Central State Percentage Change

Central 6,302,628 $6,172,666 −2.10% $3,095.59 3,031.76

University has the smallest endowment of all public Ohio universities;

It is important to consider that Ohio calculates completion rates based

Yearly changes in the POBF formula are also important to consider.

Messaging About Racial Equity

Overview of Tennessee Formula

Overview of Tennessee State University

Table 2.3 Tennessee Funding Formula

Students accumulating 24 hours, 48 hours, 72 hours Progress/process metrica

University. In 1979, after the university’s faculty ﬁled suit (Geier v.

Considerations for Tennessee State University

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