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Significant to massive drops in state funding is a major reason at my university (resulting in freezes, furloughs, and tuition increases over the last 5-6 years

Significant to massive drops in state funding is a major reason at my university (resulting in freezes, furloughs, and tuition increases over the last 5-6 years). Federal funding doesn't offset that since it can usually only be used for research staff (and small portion of faculty salaries). Support for new buildings usually doesn't come from the same budget and in most cases, new buildings are needed to handle the increased enrollments.

mazelife 12y ago
There's a secondary source of government funding beyond earmarked grants to universities: the tuition assistance it offers to students, which then goes straight into the pocket of the school. Consider pell grant spending, which has grown about 8x since it was established in 1975: https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/labor/news/2011/07/22/9945/address-the-root-causes-of-pell-grant-costs-before-cutting-it/ https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/labor/news/2011/07/2... Even if we factor in the number of students receiving the loans (which has grown), the average amount awarded to students roughly doubled since 1994.
mjn 12y ago
It does vary a lot by school. Total cost-per-student has risen substantially at many universities, but is closer to flat at others. The University of California system is one that has had kept per-student costs close to flat, and in their case, tuition rises do seem roughly equal-and-opposite of state funding cuts. Last time I ran the numbers (2012), per-student state funding had dropped from historical levels of $25-30k/student to $13k [1], which explains where the ~$15k/student increase in tuition over that period could've come from. [1] http://www.kmjn.org/misc/uc_funding.txt http://www.kmjn.org/misc/uc_funding.txt