<p>As we all know the cost of funding a college education has increased significantly over the past two decades. Concurrently, and partly contributing to this increased sticker cost increase, there has been a decline in the amount of state funding to support Americas public colleges. State funding for public colleges remains under pressure and impinges on the resources available for students. </p>
<p>I am looking to better understand this trend, how it affects various states/regions and if any states seem to have a model that others could follow for addressing this growing problem. Please share any thoughts on what is happening in your or other states and provide any links or other information that you think would be helpful to expand awareness and understanding of this problem. Thanks.</p>
<p>I read an article earlier today about the great budget surpluses around the country. The article stated that 41 states are currently running budget surpluses and some are very substantial, eg, Texas which has a $6.33 bn surplus. Not all states are participating as some old-line industrial/manufacturing states continue to struggle (Michigan was mentioned but no details were provided).</p>
<p>If anyone has a complete list or at least any more data on various states, please post as I believe that this will have repercussions for higher education in these states.</p>
<p>The Grapevine does a summary of state support for higher education, if you're just looking for numbers. But politics and the historical support of higher education in the state, not just economics, are factors.</p>
<p>For example, Ohio has been struggling nearly as much as Michigan, but their governor made higher ed a big priority in the upcoming biennial budget. FY08 funding for OSU, for example, is going up 5.8%. In contrast, Iowa's economy hasn't been struggling as much as its rust belt peers, but in the last few years state government was in a big belt-tightening era anyway. Public universities got lean increases, if any. But in a big turnaround, they're getting a whopping 12% increase next year. </p>
<p>Some states follow the "low appropriations, high tuition, high aid" model (Michigan) and some states follow the "high appropriations, low tuition, low aid" model (North Carolina). These decisions can be rooted pretty far back in the past.</p>
<p>And yes, Michigan continues to bring up the rear in a number of state economic indicators. Funding will be lean again next year, and has been grim for a number of years. U-M and MSU feel the pain, but they are better off than the other publics in the state, who have fewer other resources to call upon. I would think that is true for every state--the flagships weather the ups and downs of state funding better than do their more-regional peers with less research activity and smaller endowments.</p>
<p>It has made the papers in Texas that this refusal to fund these loan commitments seems particularly hard to understand when there is the surplus you have mentioned.</p>
<p>The spike in the cost of attending state schools, combined with Texas making an uncapped commitment to provide a place in the state school system for every Texas student who graduates in the top 10% of the HS class, has resulted in many able students (high stats) who can afford to pay private school prices not going to state schools.</p>
<p>hoedown and 07DAD,
Many thanks for your replies and your links. It was a Texas paper that I was reading over the weekend and ironically, Ohio was one of the states referenced as an economic surprise and success. The article did not deal with specifics related to higher education but rather to overall state budget coffers. It may be a case of a reporter interpreting numbers to suit their own purposes in constructing an article about state budget surpluses as indicative of our good economic times. Nonetheless, I think that the secular impact of declining state funding for higher education is a problem that, if states aren't willing to address in these pretty good times, could be much more severe a few years down the road. </p>
<p>I am familiar with the Texas problem that you referenced and think that it is pretty disgraceful. How they can make these promises to students and families and then renege….arghhhhh!</p>
<p>I'd be interested to know how much the various states spend per student (including both tax funding and tuition). I once tried to find that data, but couldn't.</p>
<p>And, are those numbers significantly different from what private schools spend per student?</p>
<p>There is so much that goes into funding it is really hard to put a number on it. Besides tuition and state $$$ you have gifts, endowment, overhead cost recovery on grants. The last three often exceed the first two at major state schools.</p>
<p>Also not all spending is really for the students.</p>
<p>From the COHE today
"Palpable differences emerged as well in attitudes toward money. The private university had almost unlimited dollars for the activities of the small program in which I worked. While that enabled us to offer many high-quality public and academic events, the easy flow of cash created a culture of elitism and entitlement in which faculty members — even those on the political left — participated eagerly.</p>
<p>Visiting scholars were routinely treated (on the university tab) to dinners at four-star restaurants where faculty hosts thought nothing of uncorking multiple $80 bottles of wine. So frequent were those dinners that one faculty member declared how tired he was of a particular high-end restaurant — one I couldn't afford to visit on my own dime at all."</p>