For state, public schools Romanigypsyeyes is right, at least in Texas and Pennsylvania. The increases in cost are a direct result of decreases of state support and a deregulation of tuition amounts. UT Austin is at 13% from the state and Pitt only receives 5%. Pitt with Penn State right behind have the highest instate tuition amounts in the country for public universities.
Folks, you really have to read the article, or at least try, before shooting your mouths off about its flaws. It’s a pretty sophisticated, careful attempt to do a statistical analysis that addresses most of the objections raised here.
As for romani’s point that federal aid per student has not increased in real terms: That’s true on a long term basis, but the adjustments have not been smoothly calibrated each year. There were significant increases in per-student limits in 2008-2010, as well as rule changes radically expanding the availability of unsubsidized loans to students and their families. The focus of the article is really evaluating the impact of those increases on tuition, using pre-increase data to understand baseline behavior by students and colleges.
They also, by the way, address another point, not yet raised here: Programs like this are effectively federal aid to educational institutions, delivered through students. Just like the food stamp program has always represented federal subsidization of food products and small groceries in poor neighborhoods – which is not necessarily a bad thing.
They look even worse in this respect when their poor in-state need-based financial aid is also considered.
The new study contradicts what others have found on this topic. I have some concerns about their methodology. From what I know about the datasets they are using, there are potentially very few students at the schools in their sample
The percent drop in state aid is a result, not a cause. If state aid does not change at the same rate and federal aid increases, the percent of state aid drops. Similarly, if private donations or endowments increase at a place greater than increases in state aid, the aid will appear to decrease when stated as a percentage. This stuff is not hard. Anyone who passed Macro and Micro should be able to see this.
State subsidies for state universities have more to do with the condition of state government finances than anything else.
Do the reports say where all this extra filthy lucre is going? Greedy conniving administrators?