Losing Ground: A National Status Report on the Availability of American Higher Education

The National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education published this very informative report in 2002. Even though it is now 7 years old, the report provides insight into the financial struggles that have plagued higher education for the past decade or so. The report is composed of seven chapters that each address a topic related to the increasing cost of higher education, including national trends, state support for higher education, q & a about the Losing Ground project, the relationship of state budget shortfalls and rising tuition, public concerns about the high cost of a college education, assistance for middle class families, and profiles of today's college students.
The five national trends that were prevelant at the time of this report were: 1) Increases in tuition have made higher education less affordable for most of American families 2) Federal and state financial aid to students has not kept pace with increases in tuition 3) more students and families of all incomes levels are borrowing more money than ever before to pay for college 4) The steepest increased in public college tuition have been imposed during times of greatest economic hardships 5) state financial support of public higher education has increased, but tuition has increased more.
Trend #5 seems to be an error, but it accurately reflects national trends in 2002. However, the appendix of this report contains each state's trends for tuition and fees at all types of institutions of higher education, median family incomes, state appropriations per student, and student financial aid from the state. this allows one to see the great variability among states.
For example, state appropriations per student increased 33% in Ohio from 4,198 to 5,590, in South Dakota they decreased 9% from 4,308 to 3,911 and in TN, they increased 2% from 5,022 to 5,132. The public university tuition increases in those three states were Ohio increased 32% from 3,845 to 5,058; South Dakota increased 45% from 2,557 to 3,702 and in TN they increased 62% from 2,002 to 3,246. The median family income for these state had increased in Ohio 17% to 64,022, in SD increased 20% to 56,719 and in TN increased 13% to 56,461.
Given the economic events since this report and the current economy, it would be interesting to know how these trends have changed. It can only be assumed that more ground has been lost.

Source: http://www.highereducation.org/reports/losing_ground/affordability_report_final_bw.pdf accessed on Oct 14, 2009