<p>
</p>
<p>Maybe it’s not what we want, but you get what you pay for. Many state legislatures aren’t providing sufficient financial support for their public universities to continue to provide low tuition to large numbers of in-state students. The sensible response? Raise tuition for in-state students, and/or admit more high-tuition OOS students. That’s the trend just about everywhere. </p>
<p>As for the idea that public universities are “largely federally supported,” I think that’s just erroneous. Yes, a few major research universities pull in big federal research grants, but that money is contractually obligated to support specific areas of faculty research, not to subsidize undergraduate education. Most public universities don’t bring in all that much in federal research funding, and those that do are competing directly with private research universities for those research dollars. I don’t see anyone saying that “largely federally funded” private universities like Harvard, MIT, and Stanford need to reduce their tuition. Public universities also benefit from federal Pell grants, federal student loans, and federal work-study money; but so do privates.</p>
<p>Bottom line, if state legislatures won’t bite the bullet and raise taxes enough to fully subsidize the cost of educating in-state students, public universities will have no choice but to raise tuition, admit more OOS students, or both. There’s no such thing as a free lunch.</p>