College Affordability Helped Drive Rise in State Support for Higher Ed

The Chronicle of Higher Education

Sonel Cutler

February 1, 2024

State support for higher education saw a significant jump this year, rising more than 10 percent from 2023 — even though the share of that money provided by the federal government dropped 50 percent.

That’s according to the annual Grapevine report released Thursday by the State Higher Education Executive Officers Association, or SHEEO. The data reflect a continued upward trajectory for state investment in higher education, with a 36.5-percent increase in support nationally over the last five years, not adjusted for inflation.

Pressure from politicians to keep tuition rates at public colleges flat helped drive some of the increase for the 2024 fiscal year.

“States are needing to increase funding more, and that’s to make up for declines in tuition revenue and institutions’ inability to raise tuition rates to meet inflationary costs,” said Kelsey Kunkle, a policy analyst for SHEEO. Several states have agreed to increase funding for higher ed in order to keep tuition rates more affordable, she said.

The data are not adjusted for inflation and provide a preliminary look at allocation of federal stimulus money and state appropriations. The report largely measures money allocated between July 1, 2023, and June 30, 2024, based on numbers reported between October 2023 and January 2024. The data will be adjusted to account for inflation in the coming months, likely lowering the estimated 10.2-percent increase slightly, Kunkle said.

“Since Grapevine has been published, the average is about 5.7 percent of an increase” per year, Kunkle said. “With that 10-percent increase being from state support, excluding stimulus, that’s almost double the average for the last 30-some years.”

Almost half of states’ $126.5 billion in total higher-ed appropriations went toward the operating budgets of public, four-year institutions, according to the report. This is fairly typical, Kunkle said, and is used to cover day-to-day operations of a college.

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