How the presence of tenure relates to institutional performance factors at publicly-funded two-year colleges in the Mountain States' region

This study examined how the presence of formal tenure systems at publicly-funded two-year colleges in the Mountain States' region of the United States relates to differences in the common institutional performance factors of graduation rate, retention rate, and unrestricted instructional cost per FTE student as reported to the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) for the 2011 academic year. This study was initiated following a review of the literature which portrayed several converging forces affecting institutions of higher education including how the 2008 economic recession impacted publicly-funded institutions of higher education; a continual increase in the use of full-time non-tenure-track faculty; an intentional movement by several state legislatures and/or higher education governing boards to minimize or abolish tenure in order to decrease costs or to increase flexibility in terms of staffing; and an increased awareness of higher education institutional performance factors on behalf of legislators, higher education policy makers, parents, and students.;The results show no significant relationship exists between the tenure group (26 IHEs) and the non-tenure group (57 IHEs) among any of the three dependent variables analyzed (2011 graduation rate, 2011 fall-to-fall retention rate, and 2011 unrestricted instructional cost per FTE student) for publicly-funded two-year colleges in the Mountain States' region of the United States.;Despite the absence of any significant relationship, this study contributes to the limited body of knowledge concerning how the presence of tenure relates to measures of institutional performance and to the limited body of knowledge regarding tenure, measures of institutional performance, and publicly-funded two-year institutions.