#statebudgets

The American  Academy of Arts & Sciences has issued a new report, “Public Research Universities: Changes in State  Funding.” The report found that higher education, the third largest priority  in state general fund budgets (after elementary and secondary education and  Medicaid), has faced spending cuts for more than a decade. The report  documents that higher education is the “balance wheel” of state budgets -  “state appropriations for higher education tend to rise disproportionately when  the economy is strong, and fall disproportionately when the economy is weak.”  The report found that “Despite modest increases in 2013 and 2014, state  support for public higher education per full-time equivalent student remains  30 percent below spending in 2000, after adjusting for inflation...”