Center for the Study of Education Policy

·        Grapevine: A national Database of State Tax Support for Higher Education

National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education

·        Policy Alert: State Shortfalls Projected Throughout the Decade

·        College Affordability In Jeopardy, released February 11, 2003

·        Measuring Up 2002: The State-by-State Report Card for Higher Education

·        Prospects for Funding Higher Education

Stateline.org

·        Education Feels States’ Financial Squeeze 

“We estimate that one-quarter of our students will run into problems,” Bill Walker, a spokesman for Virginia’s College of William and Mary, said. Over the last 18 months, William and Mary cut 58 classes and course sections, ranging from economics to music to kinesiology.

"Education drives the quality of your work force and drives whether you are going to be competitive in a knowledge-based economy," Virginia Gov. Mark Warner (D) said in an interview with Stateline.org.

·        Individual State Statistics and Comparisons Stateline.org

States to Watch

    Alabama     Alaska     Arizona     Arkansas     California     Colorado     Connecticut     Delaware     Florida     Georgia     Hawaii     Idaho     Illinois     Indiana     Iowa     Kansas     Kentucky     Louisiana     Maine     Maryland     Massachusetts     Michigan     Minnesota     Mississippi     Missouri     Montana     Nebraska     Nevada     New Hampshire     New Jersey     New Mexico     New York     North Carolina     North Dakota     Ohio     Oklahoma     Oregon     Pennsylvania     Rhode Island     South Carolina     South Dakota     Tennessee     Texas     Utah     Vermont     Virginia     Washington     West Virginia     Wisconsin     Wyoming        

Universities in Decline 

Federal and state financial aid to those who cannot pay has failed to keep pace. This has increasingly discouraged the neediest students from applying to colleges at all.

The poor, however, have turned out to be the canary in the coal mine. The disappearing courses and the threatened exodus of money-raising researchers are clear signs that some of the country's most important public universities are in crisis. Unless the country renews its commitment to public higher education, the universities will find their faculties decimated and their degrees devalued — and the students who can afford to pay looking elsewhere for college degrees. The states will then learn that important institutions are easy to destroy and devilishly difficult to rebuild.  NY Times Editorial, 8/26/03

Breaking the Social Contract: The Fiscal Crisis in Higher Education  RAND

The higher education sector, however, is facing a catastrophic shortfall in funding. Given current trends in both funding and the costs of higher education, the deficit in operating expenses for the nation's colleges and universities will have quadrupled by 2015. Assuming tuition increases no faster than inflation, by that year U.S. colleges and universities will fall $38 billion short (in 1995 dollars) of the annual budget they need to educate the student population expected in 2015. If, however, tuition increases at current rates--basically doubling by 2015--the impact on access will be devastating: effectively half of those who want to pursue higher education will be shut out.

FirstMonday

Digital Diploma Mills David F. Nobel, FirstMondayConclusion

In his classic 1959 study of diploma mills for the American Council on Education, Robert Reid described the typical diploma mill as having the following characteristics: "no classrooms," "faculties are often untrained or nonexistent," and "the officers are unethical self-seekers whose qualifications are no better than their offerings." It is an apt description of the digital diploma mills now in the making. Quality higher education will not disappear entirely, but it will soon become the exclusive preserve of the privileged, available only to children of the rich and the powerful. For the rest of us a dismal new era of higher education has dawned. In ten years, we will look upon the wired remains of our once great democratic higher education system and wonder how we let it happen. That is, unless we decide now not to let it happen

NASULGC

·        Enrollment Report 2000-2001   AASCU/NASULGC

Boston Globe

·        Romney's model for colleges faulted  

Romney's 2004 state budget, announced Wednesday, includes a business-focused model for state colleges: a decentralized system dedicated to economic growth, which also trims $150 million from the state budget. It is already roiling the education and political establishments; officials at nearly every college see themselves as losing out and the plan amounts to a direct assault on a carefully built network of schools and their guardians in the Legislature.

National Conference of State Legislatures

·        State Budget Gaps Growing at Alarming Rate According to New NCSL National Fiscal Report

50 percent growth in two months, huge gaps for FY 2004

WASHINGTON, D.C. - State budget gaps have grown by 50 percent in the last two months and state policymakers will work to resolve unprecedented budget shortfalls for the next 15 months, according to a report released today by the National Conference of State Legislatures.

The latest NCSL survey reports that two-thirds of the states must reduce their budgets by nearly $26 billion between now and June 30, which ends the current fiscal year in most states. In November, when NCSL issued its last report, states projected a cumulative gap of $17.5 billion. States already had addressed a $49.1 billion shortfall as they crafted their fiscal year 2003 budgets.

The news gets worse for budget planners. State legislatures face a minimum $68.5 billion budget shortfall for FY 2004. About a third of the states could not provide estimates for the NCSL survey, so next year's cumulative budget deficit could rise significantly.

"The magnitude of next year's budget gap is startling," said NCSL President Angela Monson, a state senator from Oklahoma. "Thirty-three states estimate budget gaps in excess of 5 percent, with 18 of those facing gaps above 10 percent. There is great cause for concern since the deficit numbers continue to grow at an alarming rate."

Dallas Morning News

·          Minority graduation rates a concern for colleges

02/13/2003

By BRAD WATSON / WFAA-TV

Texas colleges and universities know they need to do a better job at graduating more minority students, especially Hispanics.

As minority students work to make the grade in college, the assignments doled out by life often keep them from a degree.

"It's because of finances," said Robert Aguero of the Dallas County Community College District. "So many of our students - Hispanic students, minority students in general - we can pretty well say that they don't come from affluent families."

A new study of census data by the Pew Hispanic Center found that, nationally, just 16 percent of Hispanics who graduated from high school got a four-year college degree.

Money and culture are factors. The study concluded Hispanics are more likely than blacks or whites to go to community colleges because the classes are cheaper and flexible so students can work.

It's tough to do both, however.

"That can be a little bit hard, because you have to struggle sometimes to do all of your homework and that sort of stuff," said DCCCD student Megaly Rodriguez. "Sometimes it comes to the point where you have to decide whether you go to school or support your family," said student Miguel Trevino.

In Texas, just more than a third of Hispanics and African-Americans get a degree after starting college. Some Hispanic students face family pressure to quit and work full time, according to the Pew study.

Parental support does make a big difference.

"I'm the first one to graduate from high school, and the first one to go to college," said student Claudia Gutierrez. "They really want me to finish it up."

The state wants more people in college to meet Texas' labor needs in the decade ahead. To help, DCCCD offers full scholarships to high school graduates who qualify, and tutoring and counseling to keep them in class once they're enrolled.