The State Higher Education Executive Officers Association recently released their annual report on state higher education finance. The report focuses on the condition of state support for higher education in FY18, a decade after the Great Recession.
Among the findings:
- In FY18, state funding for higher education has only partially recovered from the decreases seen during the Great Recession.
- In 2008, the average per student education appropriation across states was $8,858. At the peak of the recession in 2012, the average was $6,689. By 2018, the average increased to $7,853, recapturing approximately half of the lost funds.
- 9 states have matched pre-recession appropriations for higher education.
- 11 states funded higher education at or below their lowest funding levels during the recession.
- Five continuous years of increased state support for higher education ended in FY18.
- States allocated $96.1 billion to higher education in FY18, which after making adjustments for inflation, was a negligible increase from FY17. a negligible change from FY17.
- Still, total state revenue for higher education has increased 14% since 2008.
- State financial aid to students increased 8.7% from FY17 to FY18.
- Average per FTE aid reached a high of $752 in FY 18. This represents a 30% increase from 2008.
- FY 17 to FY18 had the lowest year to year increase in education revenue (the sum of educational appropriations and net tuition revenue) per student since 1980.
- Education revenue averaged $14,566 per student.
- Net tuition revenue remained the same as FY17. This marks the first time since the recession, and only second time since 1993, that net tuition revenue did not increase.
- However, since before 2008, average net tuition revenue per student has overall increased 38.6%.
- It is important to note that these are national trends, and individual state level data vary and are available in the full report.
