<p>In my home state, there seems to be many complaints about the funding that our public colleges receive. Although these colleges continue to grown in size and are enrolling more students than ever before, the state government has kept its level of funding for these schools constant. This has led to significantly increased tuition costs for students, who have to make up for the state's stingy spending habits.</p>
<p>I was just wondering what you all thought of your home state's funding of its public universities. Are you satisfied with the amount of money the state is putting into said colleges? Does tuition at these colleges remain relatively affordable? What seems to be the general opinion on these topics?</p>
<p>with so many students going to college these days, I dont know if it is still possible to properly fund w/o taking money from K-12 (which isnt possible in some states which have laws that require a certain % of state funds to go to K-12). </p>
<p>Going to college has become an extension of high school, rather than a destination for the better students. High schools are boasting that 9X% of students are going to college. </p>
<p>In addition…I think some states have over-focused on providing aid beyond tuition so that many students think that going away to college is a given…rather than commuting to their local state school. while it is true that a small % of students must go away to get their major (for the last two years), most students and career goals can be met by attending a local public (at least for 2 years0.</p>
<p>this has created a scenario where students need fed grants, state grants, ws, loans & family funds to pay for college, rather than just loans, ws, and family funds to commute. </p>
<p>with all this money going to state grants, the money needs to come from somewhere…so, less (direct) per pupil spending. the spending is directed towards aid, while those who dont qualify see their rates rise to help subsidize.</p>
<p>Only for academically elite (public or private) high schools would 90+% of graduates go to four year college. It is probably more like a third overall, although it would be a higher proportion if you include those going to community colleges and those going to other post-secondary education not leading to a bachelor’s degree (e.g. police and fire academy, skilled trades education, etc.).</p>
<p>In terms of the original question, it depends on the definition of “sufficient” and the goals of the public higher education system, which vary between states and which people do not necessarily agree on.</p>
<p>the bottom line is that there are too many going to college …either 2 year or 4 year…and they all cost govt money. </p>
<p>going to college (even a cc) has become the common route for 18 year olds who dont yet want to work full-time. once you add in a Pell grant and other aid, there is little incentive for a number of these kids to turn that down and go to work.</p>
<p>some do the math…live at home, get a Pell grant, state aid, student loan…and voila…get a check back from the school to go shopping with.</p>
<p>The question is- what does YOUR state do to fund the public colleges? Nothing to do with who should/shouldn’t attend. How do other states do things? How has the public/private funding been handled? How has it changed since our college age days? We would like to hear.</p>
<p>I get info from NY and CA posters discussing things but- if people could concisely say how things are done it would be helpful. Especially for those east coast states where no one posting seems at all interested in their public institutions. The vast majority of any state’s students likely attend a public school instate, right?</p>
<p>Easy to presume other states do things like done at home. Not so. Wisconsin, for example, does not (need to) give merit money to those just having certain grades/test scores like I hear some do- even for OOS.</p>
<p>The shock of college costs would be lessened if the parents were asked to contribute gradually through the K-12 years, and develop the need to question what is actually done with their hard earned money. </p>
<p>The current system is lulling families in a fake system of free education and the conviction that there is sufficient OPM to cover the excesses, lack of accountability and performance, and protection of insiders forever and a day. </p>
<p>The answer has always been to throw more money at the problem, including funding a proxy for social welfare. Look at a school such as UTEP and you will see the poster child for what M2K described. A fact applauded by the Mother Teresa ranking gurus. </p>
<p>Lol Xiggi, every time I pay my property taxes, I question how “effective” our K-12 system is in here Florida. Trust us; we feel the “bite”. If I had to pay for “public” schools, I would send my kids to a private school. Once you incentivize those that can pay into the system, out of the system, you end up with no funding for public schools. </p>
<p>Wis75, state funding for education is complicated and hard to describe. Any detailed explanation would involve discussions around expenditures and sources of revenue. However, in general, states already have much of the budgets set to pay for cost like Medicaid, corrections, transportation, K-12, etc. Many sources of revenue are restricted by law for particular governmental functions or activities. When the economy slows, state revenues decrease, causing reductions in expenditures. Remember, states can’t run a deficit, like the federal government, they have to reduce expenditures. </p>
<p>When state legislatures start making those tough cuts, higher education is always one of the areas that gets hit the hardest. A college, unlike elementary or secondary schools, can increase tuition or raise funds through other sources. Politics, of course, also plays a role, as politically it’s easier to make cuts in higher education than in other services. </p>
<p>Using Florida as an example, we fund Bright Future scholarships through the state lottery. In many ways, this can be seen as a direct subsidy of the state public universities and colleges. During the recent recession, cuts in state funding lead to increases in state tuition and reduction in capital expenses. With the improving economy, we’re seeing increase in state revenue which is leading to an increase in higher education spending (but of course, no reduction in tuition!).</p>
<p>FL has managed to keep tuition costs lower than most states … Around $6,000 per year. However, funding from the state and federal governments has been greatly reduced so I’m sure the quality of education is being proportionately reduced. My D was accepted to FSU and UF but we opted for an OOS private where not as many corners are being cut. I have heard UF is increasing the number of online classes it requires for it’s undergrads. That and the fact that most students only live on campus the first year really turned us off to UF. If my daughter wanted to commute to campus, she could’ve gone to a community college and saved a lot of money. </p>
<p>re “commuting” to campus. Likewise most UW students live "off campus’ after the first year, some two, but there are so many options so close to the classroom buildings it can be closer. The campus edges merge into the city. Also- the community colleges have a huge difference in culture and academics. If most live in apartments close to campus but are students it is not at all like those who live at home.</p>
<p>I think Florida does a good job at keeping their public colleges affordable. Or at least did a good job…things are going to change for the worse in the years soon to come.</p>
<p>One cannot draw broad conclusions from the stories of my friends at publics, of course, but they all report increasing pressure to get external funding. That’s an extremely time-consuming process that only continues to take away from the direct educational needs of those undergraduates who are not ready to take advantage of research opportunities, opportunities to create interesting independent work, etc. </p>
<p>Not sure that I can follow your logic here and how it really addresses what I wrote about increasing the DIRECT funding participation of parents in the education at the K-12 level. What we currently have is a deep chasm between K-12 and tertiary education. We pretend that parents should not be involved in the first 12 to 16 years and then make their children directlty responsible for the costs minus the government and parental help. </p>
<p>Ultimately, changes will be need as we have fast outpaced our collective ability to keep funding the INCREASES in the cost of education. While one could easily point out that our spending could be increased in terms of GDP (and match a few other countries) it remains that our system is one of the biggest spendthrifts. My point remains that if parents were presented an annual bill, they might become more involved and participate more in the elections related to education, elect decent school board members, and bring a sense of parsimony to the entire system. </p>
<p>The part of ending no funding for public schools is a canard. Has always been and will always be.</p>
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<p>And they will NEVER have sufficient funding to match their voracious appetite and unfettered desires to spend more, earn more for less work, and do less for increased funding and time-off. Adminstrative bloat, diva faculty, and the need for campuses to turn into glorified country-clubs are all the rage. We spend more time worrying about the time NOT devoted to education --what it is nowadays 500 to 700 hours a year) than the remaining 8,000 hours of “off time.” The lack of funding is really a lack in increased in funding to match the rampant inflation of their costs. </p>
<p>There is a parallel thread (somewhere) about the salaries at the top public schools. You can safeky add the pasts discussions about the salaries and perks of the ADMINISTRATORS at the University of California to the mix. </p>
<p>Unresonable expectations! Very soon, it will be cheaper to offer every first grader a bank account with1,000,000 and let them enjoy a leisurely filled life than pretend to offer an education that will yield to a decent salary. </p>
<p>Ok, let me explain my logic and the weakness of direct funding for public K-12.</p>
<p>First, making parents pay the cost of K-12 education, implies that non-parents do NOT have to pay. This puts the burden on younger, lower income child rearing parents and relieves it from older, higher income “land owners”. For this reason, K-12 will always be a shared burden.</p>
<p>Next, if we start charging parents for public K-12 education, many of the higher income parents will be incentivized to spend the additional funds for private schools. If it cost X for a public elementary, I may as well pay X+Y for a private elementary. In addition, any system of direct funding would have to be adjusted by parental income. The more you earn, the more you pay. This is the only method that would allow low income family’s to have affordable access to public schools. This would also drive out the higher SES families out of public schools into private.More high SES students going to private schools will equal less funding for public K-12 programs.</p>
<p>I understand your concern around making parents more involved, as that’s a key indicator to student success. However, charging for public K-12 will not make it happen (for those parents/students who don’t pull out of the public schools) </p>
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<p>UF has always had several intro classes with 100+ students in each lecture. This is a common situation at large public universities.Some of these where video taped, so students could watch the session at different times throughout the day. UF is replacing the video tape lecture with on-line sessions. If the choice is between going to a lecture hall to watch a video, or watching it online, I would choose online. </p>
<p>UF has also began to offer Bachelor degrees on-line. However, by state requirements they can only charge 75% of the standard tuition rate for these classes, so those classes are not normally available to students outside of the on-line program. UF really, really wants on-campus students to pay 100% of tuition. :)</p>
<p>Gator, gradual contributions do not eliminate conventional funding by non-parents. The gradual contributions could also be means-tested in a K-12 FAFSA Lite fashion, starting at a small portion of the current costs. The exodus of full-paying parents is mostly a fear of the unknown. There are plenty of inherent limitations, including the limited availability of private school seats. </p>
<p>Of course, some families will feel that they are not able to afford their K-12 EFC, so that their kids will end their education at an earlier stage than they currently do. Even from the point of view of the wealthy, it may not be good to add to that number of people entering the work force with even less education than now, since they are less likely to become good contributors to the economy (including the investments held by the wealthy) and tax revenues, and more likely to become drains on social services (or worse, if they take up criminal activities, imposing the cost of crime on others, and requiring expensive police, courts, and prisons to handle them).</p>
<p>That Chicken Little scenario would be more relevant if the current state of education was close to perfect. The reality is that we are facing a huge funding crisis as the capacity to raise more funds through the states or property taxes has reached its natural limit. And our record on dropouts could hardly be worse, especially in urban areas. </p>
<p>Just ask yourself why it would be impossible for a high schooler to contribute “something” but be considered capable to fund college on his own … a few months later? </p>
<p>Again, the chasm between the funding of secondary education and tertiary education becomes wider and wider. Ultimately, something will have to give before the entire system collapses under its own weight. </p>
<p>The answer will ALWAYS be NO.
Even if they do, some with poor leadership skills will misuse the funds, and complain they do not have enough, resorting to cutting budget, programs and student services. The rest becomes history.</p>
<p>Florida doesn’t fund its higher education institutions enough. The state has also been cutting back on funding recent years. Too, there is much waste and just plain stupid decision making being done with the entire public higher education system in Florida. The state board that is supposed to oversee the public university system, the Florida Board of Governors (FBOG), is not effective and it ends up each of Florida’s state universities pretty much has to fend for themselves getting state funding. The state legislature that holds the state funding checkbook is actually running the state university system, not the FBOG. There is much wasteful duplication in Florida’s higher education system with universities and community colleges offering same education programs in same markets. The FBOG is opening a wasteful new state university this coming fall, Florida Polytechnic University…the new school probably gets very little federal funding seeing how it isn’t even accredited. </p>
<p>I agree with ccco2018; we must not only look at how much money is going into these universities but also actually analyze how these funds are distributed distributed. The bureaucracy at my local state university is terribly inefficient, meaning a large amount of funding is certainly squandered.</p>
<p>I live in Colorado – traditionally between 48th and 49th (out of 50) in per student spending on the college level. No, I am not happy with how the state funds these schools or how expensive they are when you compare average income. One of the ironies of the system is that there are college professors in CO who have difficulties affording sending their children to the very schools where they teach. Many opt to send their high-achieving kids to out-of-state privates where they can get financial aid that will make paying for college doable on a professor’s salary, particularly when you have to educate more than one child. </p>