Inside Higher Ed has an article today on the report by the State Higher Education Executive Officers. The report looks at funding levels for universities. It says:
In the 2009 fiscal year, state support for higher education fell by $2.8 billion to $77.9 billion, but an infusion of $2.4 billion in federal funds largely offset those losses.
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Just as states were seeing revenues decline, the enrollment boom hit a record high of 10.8 million students at public institutions – an uptick of 3.4 percent between 2008 and 2009. In a predictable pattern for a recession, those students have been carrying a greater share of the cost of their education. Indeed, 37.3 percent of education revenue came from tuition in 2009 -- an increase of 2.6 percentage points in five years, the report notes.
Thanks to the backstop in federal funds, universities all over America were able to keep teaching, even with a higher enrollment.
Learn how the American Recovery and Reinvestment helped backstop education funding gaps at local and state levels allowing teachers to stay in the classrooms and students to learn.
