Report Shows a Shift Away From Public Funding.

Tuitions are up but educational dollars are moving away from the classroom, and students at public institutions are shouldering more of the cost of college while getting less for their money, according to a report released today.

The report, released by the Delta Project on Postsecondary Education Costs, Productivity, and Accountability, indicates students enrolled in public colleges and universities — where a majority of students matriculate — receive the fewest resources available in higher education.

The mission of the Delta Project is to help improve college affordability by controlling costs and improving productivity. During a teleconference held on Tuesday, executive director Jane Wellman said the data indicated the privatization of higher education most benefits institutions that have a research mission, rather than student-focused institutions.

“I don’t believe the states have made a conscious decision to disinvest in higher education. It’s just turning out that way because higher education gets squeezed when state funds are squeezed,” added Wellman.

“States have to go back first to principles of how they are investing public subsidies in higher education,” Wellman said. “That might take them to shifting of resources across sectors and also some decisions about where they want to put students relative to spending in order to have the most effective use of public resources to produce public results.”

The report "Trends in College Spending: Where Does the Money Come From? Where Does the Money Go?" notes that state appropriations per student declined from 2002 to 2005. They rebounded slightly in 2006 (the last year for which data is available), but did not reach previous levels. Students are shouldering more of the total cost of their education at all institutions, except private research universities that have a number of revenue sources, such as endowments.