This study examined the impact of state budget cuts on public colleges and universities in six states, focusing on the effects of such cuts on institutional priorities and plans, tuition and fees, and educational quality. Five state higher education finance officers, 12 state college or university system finance officers, and 98 college or university finance officers from California, Florida, Massachusetts, New York, Texas, and Wisconsin were surveyed in 1997. It was found that state college and university systems relied mostly on short-term measures such as enrollment reductions, tuition and fee increases, vacancies and salary freezes, and early retirements, which generally emphasized raising revenues and restricting expenses, to alleviate funding cuts, and neglected the reshaping of missions and priorities. Institutional responses indicated that individual colleges and universities took a much more proactive approach to funding cuts, including the reshaping of missions and priorities. However, individual campuses did not depart significantly from state systems' preferences for short-term cost-saving measures such as salary and hiring freezes. An appendix provides a breakdown of the survey population. (Contains 35 references.) (MDM)