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Indicator IV-5
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State Funding for Higher Education
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NOTE TO READERS: Please include the following reference when citing data from this page:
"American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Humanities Indicators, http://HumanitiesIndicators.org".
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Currently, no data concerning states’ commitment to the humanities departments of
the nation’s postsecondary institutions exist. This indicator can thus describe
only state appropriations for higher education generally. In so doing, however,
it does suggest the conditions under which humanities departments on the campuses
of public colleges and universities must compete with other fields for funding.
The data presented here for the 1965–2009 time frame come from the Illinois State
University’s Center for the Study of Education Policy’s annual
Grapevine Survey
of state tax appropriations for higher education. These data reveal that state expenditures
rose almost every year between 1965 and 1990 (Figure IV-5a). Then, after
a short period of decline, expenditures began rising again, so that by 2002 states
were spending a record $82.3 billion (in 2009 dollars) on postsecondary education.
State spending then dropped 11% between the peak year of 2002 and 2005. This was
the largest three-year decline (in both absolute and percentage terms) ever recorded
by the Grapevine Survey. Appropriations increased each year between 2005 and 2008,
but the year 2009 saw a slight decline in spending, one that may become more pronounced
as states rescind appropriations in response to the global economic recession and
the large budget shortfalls the recession has created in many states.
Such national figures, however, mask substantial differences in the degree of individual
states’ monetary commitments to higher education. Grapevine data reveal that while
the average state appropriation was $272 per capita, the level of state investment
ranged from $102 per capita in New Hampshire to more than five times that amount
in Wyoming (Figure IV-5b).
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