“This protects taxpayers by rejecting calls to raise taxes,” Ducey said at a news briefing in January. “This budget doesn’t just give the appearance of spending discipline, it offers the reality of spending discipline.”
University budgets would fall less than 2 percent, said Daniel Scarpinato, a Ducey spokesman. Still, the demand has angered university officials and students.
The proposal “signals to the state and the nation that higher education is a low priority,” Arizona State University President Michael Crow wrote last week to alumni.
In Connecticut, which is contending with the third-worst- funded pension system in the U.S., educators have warned of even greater tuition increases than planned if Malloy, a second-term Democrat, secures $10 million in spending cuts. Higher-education agencies have said that would leave them nearly $80 million short, given new costs such as the need to pay raises mandated by collective-bargaining agreements.
Institutions make up the difference by raising tuition or cutting services, said Michael Mitchell, state fiscal policy analyst at the budget center.
In the past 30 years, average in-state tuition and fees at public, four-year institutions rose 225 percent, to $9,139 from $2,810 in 2014 dollars, according to the College Board, which administers the SAT entrance exam. Costs at private schools rose 146 percent, to $31,231 from $12,716.
Budgets reflect the political priorities of those who craft them.
In Kansas, Brownback’s push to create a laboratory for the idea that lower taxes stimulate economic growth has led to a projected $345 million shortfall this fiscal year. The higher- education cuts take effect March 7.
Even with the reductions, spending this fiscal year was $20 million above last, said Eileen Hawley, a Brownback spokeswoman.
Louisiana’s governor, Republican Bobby Jindal, is struggling to close a $1.6 billion budget gap exacerbated by falling oil and gas prices while casting himself as a fiscal steward worthy of the presidency.