This week's Intead Insight graph picked the funding trends for education per student. The biggest driver of tuition increases has been the decline in state funding for universities, which are passed along to the individual student and their families. see graph at http://www.intead.com/higher-education/
The long-term trend is concerning based on our well-known demographics of baby boomers -- and I am a last year boomer myself -- retiring over the next decades. The predictable and currently programmed financial needs to cover Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid will lead to a crowding out of public investments and expenditures in other areas, including education.
The political dynamic of higher voter participation and better organization of older voters makes this trend almost inevitable.
The message to universities is self-evident: get ready to increase service efficiencies, reduce costs, increase your competitiveness in finding tuition paying students, raise endowment levels, and find other revenue producing services.
Do you see any other ideas that will avoid these reductions in education spending?
Sources: http://nyti.ms/Nz1rjr (Link to full graph on NYT)
New York Times' article on Old vs. Young
