[eitally]

It's even worse than that. States are not only reducing their funding, but the funding they do provide is nowhere near the operating requirements for major universities. Consider my alma mater, the University of Virginia, which receives about $8500 in funding per full-time student from the state (so roughly $150m/yr). This is <6% of their $2.6b annual operating budget[1]. Compare this to the 45% of funds that comes from health center patient revenues, or the 10-11% that each come from research/grants and gifts.[2] Pretty ridiculous. Spending is out of control, of course, but even not-for-profit schools are competing against each other for talent & grants, and the best ways they seem to know how involve huge infrastructure & technology investments, not to mention extra perks for students/faculty/staff.

[1] http://www.virginia.edu/finance101/state.html [2] http://www.virginia.edu/finance101/budgeted.html