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PHOENIX — Student performance could play a role in how Arizona's universities are funded.

And if the plans being discussed at the state Capitol take shape, it could be an early sign that the standards and test-based formulas of the controversial No Child Left Behind Act are about to graduate to the college level.

Arizona's three universities would see their funding based on student performance and graduation rates — not just head count — under plans being drafted by state Rep. Jennifer Burns, the Tucson Republican who chairs the House Committee on Higher Education.

Burns said the University of Arizona, Arizona State University and Northern Arizona University might, for example, receive 75 percent of their per-student funding upfront and the other 25 percent once the student graduates.

"It may not just be graduation rates," she said. "It may be enrolling a certain number of first-generation students or enrolling ones out in rural areas."

Similar changes might not be limited to the state's universities, as lawmakers discuss ways to bring Arizona's 10 college districts under one umbrella.

Burns said the motivation is to make Arizona more competitive. There's a lack of qualified workers in fields such as science and technology, she said.

As part of the plan, colleges could get a budgetary bonus if they graduate more students in areas deemed important.

"We as America and Arizona have to do better," Burns said. "As the fastest-growing state, we need to look at how we're doing things as a whole. We need more degree production."

Universities are approaching the subject cautiously. They would like to see a system based on incentives rather than on funding being held back.

"I think it might be that a part of the funding structure is based on student performance," said Christine Thompson, lobbyist for the Arizona Board of Regents, which governs the three universities.

Shaking up Arizona's higher-education-funding system would mean shifting away from a 50-year-old policy that provides a set amount of money for every 22 students the university enrolls, with money for particular programs on top of that.

Some of the issues to hammer out: How do lawmakers tie funding to performance without mirroring the costly and complicated system that has been imposed on primary and secondary education?

"This is real tricky," said Matthew Ladner, vice president of research for the Goldwater Institute, a conservative think tank in Phoenix that has joined with voices on the left in criticizing the state's AIMS test. "The thing to avoid is creating a kind of No Child Left Behind for higher education."

Ladner said a mechanism for measuring performance on the college level is needed, because there is no way to objectively compare university performance right now. Using funding to get there is not the solution, he said.

"For a long time, we've been content and kind of self-congratulatory that we have the best system of higher education in the world because a lot of people from overseas want to come here and study," he said. "What we don't know, and the basic question we cannot answer, even in the most primitive way, is: 'Does Arizona State (University) do a better job educating students than the University of Arizona?' Nobody knows."

Burns said her proposal would be different from what's been done on the lower levels.

"We wouldn't be doing it as far as AIMS, where there's a performance of a test that you have to do to get out," she said. Instead, the system would be based on performance measures the university must meet, she said.

"Whatever the benchmarks are, once you prove to us you've done it, then you get the funding, which is an incentive for them to do it," she said.

As part of discussions that have been going on for a year, Burns and others also are interested in re-creating a board and agency to oversee Arizona's community colleges, which are currently funded through a combination of state and local taxes. Each is governed by an individual local board, so the state-level board would function as a "coordination board" rather than a regulatory board.

"We have to balance statewide planning and oversight with local control," Burns said.

The state once had an agency to oversee community colleges, but it was ended in the late 1990s. At that time, it had cost about $850,000 per year.

A report issued in 1995 by the state auditor general found that much of the agency's duties could be transferred to the local level.

But Burns and others said that since then, the state's community colleges have engaged in little collaboration.

"It's important that … the state of Arizona have a way of leveraging its public resources, particularly in higher education," said Roy Flores, chancellor of Pima Community College. "It helps to have a board … that would enable community colleges to work together and come up with statewide programs that would benefit the state's work force and increase access to education generally."