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.…

The effects of a budgetary formula change on 39 public colleges and universities in Virginia were assessed. As a state reaction to declining resources, the sample of 15 senior-level colleges and 24 community colleges had undergone a policy change for the 1978-1980 budget to make an adjustment upward in the student-faculty ratio. Attention was…