State funding for top universities dropped by 20%

US per-student state funding for public research universities dropped about 20% between 2002 and 2010, according to a report released last week by the National Science Board, the policy-making arm of the National Science Foundation, writes Kevin Kiley for Inside Higher Ed.

According to the biannual Science and Engineering Indicators report, total state support for the top 101 public universities declined by 10% between 2002 and 2010, with nearly 75% receiving cuts. Because institutions' enrolments grew significantly during this period, the per-student decline was about twice as steep. State funding declined as a share of these universities’ budgets from 28% in 2001 to 19% in 2009.
Full report on the Inside Higher Ed site