That chart refers to state funding of higher education, not all education. I thought your discussion was about primary and secondary education more than higher education.
If you do want to discuss higher education, the NEA chart does not say that state funding of higher education has declined since 1980. Rather, it says that the percentage of state funding devoted to higher education has declined since then. That's an important distinction. A percentage decline in expenditures on an item only translates into an absolute decline if total expenditures remain the same.
In fact, total state spending on all items during that period has increased dramatically. As a result, total state spending on higher education has actually increased since the early 1980's.
Here are the specifics, according to the National Conference on State Legislatures:
ncsl.org
Per capita state spending grew by almost one-third in the 1990s (by NIPA measurement), an impressive figure, but less than its growth in the 1980s, and far less than in the 1960s. State government in the United States assumed its present form in the 1960s, the decade of greatest institutional change for the states in this century. The principle of one person, one vote transformed representation in state legislatures. Civil rights legislation expanded the actual franchise in some states. States expanded their taxing capacity to fund public elementary, secondary and higher education, and, finally, the Great Society vastly expanded state administrative responsibility for federal-state social programs.
State spending tracked these changes, as shown by the changes in per capita spending in current state expenditures shown in table 1:
That table -- see the link for details -- shows that per capita state expenditures in 1981 were $1,000, and in 2001 per capita state expenditures were $3,282. Adjusted for inflation, using 1996 dollars, the increase was from $1,685 to $2,983.
If the NEA chart that you linked to regarding a "fiscal crisis" is accurate, about ten percent of state expenditures in the early 1980's went to higher education while around 7 percent of state expenditures in 2000 went to higher education. In 1996 dollars, then, per capita higher education expenditures in 1980 would have been about $168.50 (10 percent of the $1,685 figure from the NCSL) and per capital higher education expenditures in 2000 would have been about $208.81 (7 percent of the $2,983 figure from the NCSL). (Without adjusting for inflation, the increase in state spending for higher education during that period is even greater, of course.)
Put in terms easier for you to understand, half of a triple cheeseburger is more food than all of a single cheeseburger, even though you've eaten a smaller percentage of the triple cheeseburger.
California, to cite just one example covering 12 percent of the U.S. population, has seen a dramatic increase in higher education funding since the early 1980's. According to the California Legislative Analyst Office, here are the year-by-year expenditures by the State of California since 1984 on higher education (see spreadsheet at lao.ca.gov, line item 6500 "higher education"):
6,500 Higher Education
1984: $4,079,958,000
1985: $4,517,889,000
1986: $4,785,018,000
1987: $5,111,825,000
1988: $5,417,106,000
1989: $5,576,085,000
1990: $5,832,544,000
1991: $5,831,201,000
1992: $5,044,166,000
1993: $4,680,629,000
1994: $5,102,161,000
1995: $5,531,092,000
1996: $6,180,055,000
1997: $6,624,546,000
1998: $7,401,990,000
1999: $8,021,013,000
2000: $9,148,780,000
2001: $9,645,319,000
2002: $9,487,921,000
2003: $8,795,141,000
2004: $9,264,316,000
Current expenditure levels for higher education in California are 50 percent higher than they were 8 years ago ($9.2 Billion versus $6.1 Billion).
I don't know about you, but when I prioritize my budget and decide over an 8 year period to spend 50 percent more on something, I don't call that a decline in funding. |
