Some thoughts on pay-for-performance in higher education
28 June 2010, by Dr Peter Ewell
There is something quite beguiling about performance funding. It is relentlessly capitalistic and is largely in accord with the way we think human motivation works. Partly as a result, it has enjoyed several runs of experiment in higher education the U.S. and is currently being mooted as an alternative financing mechanism for the sector across the world. Despite the popularity of pay-for-performance in the policy community, there are at least three reasons why it does not tend to work very well.
