By RICHARD VEDDER. Get public-university presidents together, and they start complaining about the diminishing amount of subsidy support from their state governments. A review of historical data shows that from the early 1980s until the year before the recent financial crisis, inflation- adjusted state funding per student was essentially unchanged. Over the last generation, an academic arms race has considerably increased total spending per student, so as a percentage of university budgets, state appropriations have sharply fallen.
At some flagship state universities, the cuts in appropriations have been real in absolute dollar terms. The state share of academically related university spending (excluding revenue items such as food, lodging, hospitals and intercollegiate athletics) is now less than 10 percent. This, however, varies among the states: Per-capita university appropriations in fiscal year 2012 ranged from $63 in New Hampshire to $592 in Wyoming; California ($256) spent 80 percent more per capita than Pennsylvania ($143), although the Golden State continues to face a very challenging fiscal outlook. More...

By David Koeppel. College grads are heading back to school, but not grad school. In some cases, associate's degrees offer more economic bang for their buck than bachelor's degrees.
In the aftermath of the Great Recession, thousands of students have learned the bitter lesson that the college degrees they paid for do not guarantee a steady job. In response, many have opted for grad school to give their status, pay, and job security a bump. Then there are those who seem to be taking a step backwards. It may seem counter-intuitive  but some graduates are choosing to pursue community college associate degrees, after their bachelor's.
"There is a lot of anecdotal evidence that this is on the rise as a phenomenon," says Doug Shapiro, executive research director of the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center.
The National Post Secondary Student Aid Study (NPSAS) estimates that during the 2007-2008 academic year, 8% of entering community college students had already completed their bachelor's degrees. This data was collected before the surge in enrollment at community colleges in recent years, says Norma Kent, senior vice president at the American Association of Community Colleges. More...