Of teachers and students and budget cuts,of quality and change

Faculty morale is low and falling. Support budgets for higher education are tight and getting tighter. The quality of education programs increasingly is questioned. This article presents a case for selective funding of new approaches to higher education. The author argues that though blank-check funding is a phenomenon of the past, special incentive grant programs are an effective means of addressing all three problems. He cites the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education and a special State Fund for Innovation and Improvement in the Instructional Process in California as programs that have tapped faculty creativity and improved the quality of education at modest cost.David H. Provost, Professor of Political Science on leave from California State University, Fresno, is Statewide Dean, Division of New Program Development and Evaluation, Office of the Chancellor, The California State University and Colleges, Long Beach, California 90802.