Q&A – College Protests, Enrollment & Government Funding
Each day I feature a listener question sent by one of these methods.
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Today’s Entry: Brian, I heard your interview with Sen. Scott and his call for ending funding for colleges allowing the protestors to take over. I thought most college funding comes from states. Am I missing something?
Bottom Line: Not exactly, because you’re right, as far as government funding of colleges is concerned most of the revenue they receive is from state and local governments – however there is a hefty federal piece as well. That’s included a record number of tax dollars going to universities despite lower student headcounts in recent years. That's probably a good place to start with this analysis. A lot of people pinpoint the pandemic as a key catalyst for the decline in students seeking a college education, however, the decline started a full decade before it.
Total college enrollment went straight up from the onset of historical record keeping until 2010. In 2010 a total of 21 million students were enrolled nationally at all colleges and universities. From there higher education began to experience a slow and steady decline in headcount. By 2015 there were a million fewer students enrolled across the country. Five years later, in 2020 at the onset of the pandemic, enrollment had declined by another one million students for a total enrollment of 19 million students. Over the prior decade preceding the pandemic colleges and universities averaged the loss of 200,000 students per year. As for what came next, it was actually a bit of stability.
At the start of 2024 there were a total of 18.94 million students attending colleges and universities. That’s a total that’s only about 88,000 students lower than enrollment levels in 2020. In Florida specifically we’ve seen declines in college enrollment as well, despite having the most affordable college education system in the country for instate students, along with the top ranked university system in the country – though Florida’s declines in enrollment have happened at a pace that’s been slightly lower than the national average.
In reality the pandemic is an excuse for those involved in higher education who’re concerned with lower enrollment numbers. There’s obviously a much bigger disconnect that dates back to around 14 years ago when growing numbers of young adults no longer pursued a college education. But today’s question wasn’t about that dynamic specifically, it was about where colleges are deriving their funding, and specifically how much is coming from the federal government. So, about that...
First, while total student headcounts at colleges and universities have declined by 14% since the peak of enrollment in 2010, overall government funding for colleges and universities has continued to rise at a steady rate. Total federal government funding of colleges and universities is 16% higher today than in 2010. For the current government fiscal year, a total of $203 billion federal taxpayer dollars are being used to fund colleges and universities - that’s right at a quarter of the total revenue brought in by them. Most of that, approximately 65%, comes in the form of federal student aid spending with the balance largely being issued through targeted research grants for programs and initiatives undertaken at specific schools. As for what happens at the state and local level...
As mentioned, most of the government spending for higher education does come at the state and local level. The total state and local spending now exceeds $320 billion annually. In fact, higher education spending averages being the fourth largest state and local government expenditure behind “public welfare” projects, K-12 education, and healthcare and hospital spending. For comparison’s sake, state and local governments average spending more on higher education than they do on the entirety of law enforcement and the justice system (including the operation of the corrections departments and court systems). In Florida that’s not quite the case.
Florida’s state and local government spending on higher education is the second lowest in the country with an average of $22,700 in state and local spending annually per college student. That’s over $9,000 less per student, or 29%, than the national average which again is notable because Florida’s college and university system is both the most affordable while also being the top ranked. Clearly there’s not a strong connection between government spending on colleges and affordability and outcomes. That takes us to the proposal by Senator Rick Scott and many Republican colleagues in congress who’ve called on defunding colleges and universities that have abdicated control of their schools to those who espouse hatred and deny students generally of the college education they’d been promised by schools.
As sponsor of the Stop Antisemitism on College Campuses Act, Senator Scott has included in the legislation a provision which would rescind federal education funding for colleges and universities that support, authorize, or facilitate events that promote antisemitism. Not only as a taxpayer does that seem to be the right thing to do, through this analysis I’ve shown that in reality, a reduction in federal funding to colleges and universities is an entirely plausible thing to do as headcount has been coming down while taxpayer funding of it has continued to go up.