The College Where Funding Follows Students’ Earnings, Not Enrollment

Most public colleges get state funding based on “seat time,” — how many students are sitting through classes. Over a decade ago, leaders at Texas State Technical College bet on an experimental funding model that ties state support to the employment outcomes of their graduates. For this episode, we hear from the architect of the unusual approach, Michael Bettersworth, the college’s vice chancellor and chief marketing officer. And Jeff and Michael explore the lessons that all types of colleges can take from rethinking funding models to better match their missions. This episode is made with support from Ascendium Education Group. Chapters 0:00 - Introduction 3:49 - A College That Only Gets Paid When Students Get Jobs 6:42 - How the Unusual Funding Model Started 9:49 - How Has the Funding Model Gone? 12:05 - Voters Approve Endowment for a Technical College 13:20 - A Quest to Better Map Skills Colleges Teach to Jobs 18:52 - The Importance of ‘Occupational Identity’ 21:17 - Should Other Types of Colleges Try This Funding Model? 23:40 - How Much Should Colleges Be Responsible For Student Employment Outcomes? 25:43 - How Is AI Changing the Conversation About Skills? 29:01 - Creating Incentives to Map Teaching to Jobs 31:20 - How Can We Know What Skills Are Actually Needed in Certain Jobs? 34:41 - Funding Models Should Match College Missions 39:58 - Lightning Round with Michael Bettersworth Relevant Links “ If— ” by Rudyard Kipling “ Inventing a Job-Skills Machine, ” by Rebecca Koenig in EdSurge “ Taxonomies of Human Performance, ” by Edwin A. Fleishman. “ Marc Andreessen says AI layoffs are a farce: Companies are 75% overstaffed, and AI is the ‘silver bullet excuse’ to clean house, ” in Fortune.

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The College Where Funding Follows Students’ Earnings, Not Enrollment is an episode from Future U Podcast by Jeff Selingo and Michael Horn.

This episode is 00:42:28 long.

This episode was published on May 5, 2026.

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