New Report Confirms States Continue to Under-Fund Colleges and Universities
New research from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) ought to worry us:States Are Still Funding Higher Education Below Pre-Recession Levels. While many states have begun to restore some of the cuts they made to spending for colleges and universities during the recession that began in 2008, 48 states are still spending less on higher education in real dollars than in 2007. Across the states, spending for state colleges and universities averages $2,026 or 23 percent less per student than in 2008. Sadly during 2013-2014, 8 states further reduced higher education funding per-pupil: Pennsylvania, Arkansas, Kansas, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Louisiana, West Virginia, and Wyoming.
And to make matters worse, Arizona, Florida, Kansas, Michigan, Missouri, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, and Wisconsin—which had already made deep cuts to higher education funding—have already made or are seriously considering further tax cuts this year. “Florida lawmakers, for example, have cut taxes by nearly $400 million in the current 2014 legislative session with another $100 million in cuts still under consideration. These cuts come at a time when Florida’s higher education funding stands 30 percent below pre-recession levels, and tuition at its public four year colleges has increased by 66 percent over the last five years.”
In its 2014 report, CBPP explains that while states could have reduced the size of spending cuts by raising taxes, most states chose not to. “Rather than choosing a balanced mix of spending cuts and targeted revenue increases, states relied disproportionately on damaging cuts to close the very large budget shortfalls they faced over the course of the recession. Between fiscal years 2008 and 2012, states closed 45 percent of their budget gaps (for higher education) through spending cuts and only 16 percent of their budget gaps through taxes and fees (they closed the remainder of their shortfalls with federal aid, reserves, and various other New Report Confirms States Continue to Under-Fund Colleges and Universities | janresseger:
