Capital appropriations are an important but often forgotten component of the public contribution to funding higher education. In fiscal year 2021, nearly $13 billion was appropriated for capital projects at public institutions, representing 11.6% of the total state contribution to higher education. When compared to general operating support and…

Since 2003, the State Higher Education Executive Officers Association (SHEEO) has produced the annual State Higher Education Finance (SHEF) report to broaden understanding and enable analysis of state-level and national funding and enrollment trends over time. The final section in each SHEF report has focused on the effort and capacity of states…

Limited research has been done to date on the extent of public funding of Open Educational Resources (OER) within basic education (K-12 equivalent) in South Africa. As claims have been made about the potential cost reductions that come with using OER, this study aimed to establish a benchmark of public spending on educational resources, uncover…

Many Chicagoans are getting shortchanged, particularly when it comes to money exchange between the Illinois Lottery (IL) and Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE). A significant portion of lottery sales is earmarked for education in Illinois. Because these revenues are not generated equally, however, some contribute more to education via the…

This article considers the role of higher education in state budgets. It empirically models and tests the balance wheel hypothesis in a robust framework. The balance wheel model posits that in good economic times, higher education is an attractive area for states to fund and tends to be funded at a higher rate than other state budget categories.…

This article presents an empirical analysis of the public funding system for higher education in Germany and a comparison with five other European countries. The large number of separate student support items in Germany makes it an exception and makes the system obscure. The allocations of public expenditure to German institutions are below…

What does the geographic distribution of state spending look like? Are there regions of the state that receive more than their "fair share" of state funds? How is a region's "fair share" defined and calculated? This report examines the geographic distribution of state spending across nine regions: the San Francisco Bay Area,…

Public higher education's changing financial environment is well documented. Facing shrinking budgets, competing priorities, public resistance to increasing state levies, and prohibitions on deficit spending, state legislators more and more often find themselves in the unenviable position of debating the relative essentiality of state services,…

This study examines spending on children and youth in Texas by constructing a comprehensive children's budget for 1978 spending. The study attempts to include not only data on spending through State government sources, but also other public sources of funds, charitable spending, and indirect Federal subsidies through tax exclusions. Total spending…

Within the context of the school finance literature, the concepts of equity and adequacy raise a number of complex definitional and pragmatic issues. The purpose of this paper is to clarify those issues and to use those concepts to evaluate the recent policy proposal called Weighted Student Funding (WSF). Though WSF contains some equity-enhancing…

The limitations of economic analysis are evident when one considers the complexity of our society's needs and problems. Seven propositions which may be useful in planning and in financing higher education are: education is a form of human capital; the 3 major functions of higher education are discovering talent, instruction and research; there are…

In March 1983, the California Postsecondary Education Commission recommended that the Board of Governors of the California Community Colleges authorize community college districts to levy at their discretion a fee surcharge of not more than 10% of a mandatory general student charge. The objectives of levying the surcharge would be to increase…

Describes the system of revenue-centered budgeting at the University of Southern California and how it has benefited some academic units and penalized others. (SR)

Key trends in higher education in the 1970s are summarized, and the current condition of higher education in terms of its human, physical, and financial resources is reviewed. Attention is directed to progress to broaden access to higher education, to preserve quality programs and services, and to maintain fiscal health. Data are presented to…

This study attempts to estimate the federal resources required to fulfill the aspirations of Americans for post-secondary education and draws up 2 possible levels of support to be reached by 1976--one to meet the nation's minimum aspirations and one which is more likely to allow the poor to participate in post-secondary education. The report is…