Formula Funding Study

Nevada has a long history of using a funding formula to calculate budget requests that would provide adequate resources and equity to all NSHE institutions. In 1968, the Higher Education Advisory Committee and the Chancellor’s Office of the University of Nevada System (now NSHE) both suggested that the state should use an enrollment-driven formula for funding higher education.

Since that time, the formula has been modified several times as well as become more complex. Similarly, NSHE has grown and become more complex as Nevada has grown. Over the past 27 years, enrollments have grown from 47,150 headcount students to 105,428 in fall 2011.

The current formula remains primarily based on student credit hours which are translated into full-time positions.

The Nevada Legislature and NSHE are working together to revise the funding formula to better meet the needs of our students, the state, and to allow the institutions the freedom to use resources in the best way possible to meet their missions of teaching, research and service.

» Milestones:

• May 2011: In May 2010, the Nevada System of Higher Education (NSHE) engaged MGT of America, Inc. to provide recommendations on funding formulas through evaluation of the existing Nevada funding formula (the NSHE formula). The review was to include funding sources and consider mission differentials; through review of other states’ and systems’ funding methods MGT was to contrast and compare the NSHE formula to the other major funding formulas used by the states for public institutions of higher education. Click to read the MGT final report.
• June 2011: SB 374 is signed into law and the Committee to Study the Funding of Higher Education is created.
• January 2012: Chancellor Dan Klaich presents a proposal calling for a new model of formula funding that shifts funding from student input (enrollment) to student output (graduation).
• March 2012: A revised proposal for an alternate formula.
• June 2012: The proposed alternate formula is revised.
• August 2012: Summary of the proposed funding formula.
• November 2012: Updated formula funding summary
• January 2013: Updated formula funding summary
• April 2013: Formula Funding Update
• March 2014: Updated formula funding summary
• January 2015: Higher Education Funding Formula Summary
• June 2015: Higher Education Funding Formula Summary (updated)
• January 2018: Higher Education Funding Formula Summary

Additional Information

• Higher Education Funding Formula Summary (June 2015)
• Funding of Higher Education: Bulletin 13-08
• Nevada Legislature SB 374