As States Decrease Funding, Institutes Look Out of State

Greg Jones

Throughout 2008 and up until the summer of 2009 the state of California underwent a massive budget crisis. Falling incomes made income taxes less reliable and legislators disagreed on what to do. Some people in the state senate wanted to increase taxes while others wanted to cut funding. The California constitution stipulates that no increase in taxes can be done without a bond measure voted on by California residents. Not surprisingly the residents of California repeatedly rejected the idea of tax hikes. This eventually ended up leading to furlough days for state workers, $2 billion in IOUs being written by the state, and the eventual agreement to cut $15 billion in spending (K-12 education cannot be affected by these cuts because the state constitution says these funds cannot be cut without a bond measure but spending on higher education is affected).

The University of California system is already hurting for funding, but these additional cuts will only make the situation worse. The article At Public Universities: Less for More, by New York Times writer Paul Fain, details how some flagship universities, like UCLA, are attempting to cope with these decreased budgets. According to Paul (the article's writer), the most viable option for many of these universities is to admit higher percentages of out of state students because the tuition payed by them is much higher. The downside that he points out, however, is that with the downturn in the economy there is only a small pool of students looking to go out of state and universities would have to compete for these students. The increased number of in state applicants to flagship universities along with the decreased number of students seeking an education out of state could limit this ability to only a select few universities. This strategy is one that hits close to home because I am an out of state student at a flagship university, namely Georgia Institute of Technology. I think that admitting out of state students is in fact a good way to raise funds, but maintaining your commitment to in state students should be your top priority as a state school.