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State Support for Higher Ed Continues to Rise. Yet Public Colleges Still Face Headwinds. By  Helen Huiskes May 25, 2023 Joan Wong for The Chronicle

While enrollment is down at the nation’s public colleges, state funding for higher ed is up — and students are footing less of the bill for their education.

State and local support for higher ed increased nearly 5 percent in the 2022 fiscal year, according to the latest State Higher Education Finance report, published on Thursday by the State Higher Education Executive Officers Association. States allocated more money for higher education both in the form of financial aid, which increased 2 percent, and general public operations, which increased 7 percent. (The report adjusted those proportions for inflation.)

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While enrollment is down at the nation’s public colleges, state funding for higher ed is up — and students have been footing less of the bill for their education over the last four years.

State and local support for higher ed increased nearly 5 percent in the 2022 fiscal year, according to the latest State Higher Education Finance report, published on Thursday by the State Higher Education Executive Officers Association. States allocated more money for higher education both in the form of financial aid, which increased 2 percent, and general public operations, which increased 7 percent. (The report adjusted those proportions for inflation.)

The SHEF report, released annually since 2003, is a data set detailing state and local funding for both two- and four-year higher-education institutions, as well as tuition revenue and enrollment. The association measures state support and net tuition revenue per student by considering enrollment on the basis of full-time-equivalent students, or FTE.

The growth in higher-ed funding since the pandemic-related economic downturn of 2020 bucks a historical trend, according to the report. Recessions traditionally lead to lower state support for public higher education, which prompts colleges to raise tuition and other costs for students.

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In the 2022 fiscal year, the “student share” — which the association defines as the percentage of total revenue that comes from tuition for each full-time student — decreased in 32 states and Washington, D.C. In Connecticut, Kansas, Louisiana, and New Jersey, the student share has fallen below 50 percent of total revenue in each of the last five years.

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