Despite last year’s significant increase in state appropriations and the accompanying freeze in tuition and mandatory fees, Massachusetts public colleges and universities are still significantly underfunded and expensive compared to most other states. This data comes from a variety of sources and may be useful in advocates’ work as we urge the Legislature to continue […]
This new report from the Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center presents clear, simple graphs and text. As fascinating as it is disturbing, it will be very useful to advocates of public higher education. 2 quick examples: Massachusetts ranks 48th of the 50 states in higher education spending as a percent of the economy. In Fiscal […]
This is a new report co-authored by Noah Berger from the Mass. Budget and Policy Center. It demonstrates that a sta te’s best economic development strategy is providing expanded access to high quality education., NOT tax cuts or business tax breaks, The paper looks at data from across the country and finds · There is […]
11 Massachusetts activists went on a PHENOM-sponsored trip to Montreal for several days in May. The purpose was to learn from student activists who had participated in last year’s student strike that began over tuition increases and led to the fall of the provincial government. Meeting representatives of two of the leading federations of student […]
This graph shows how state support for public higher education students has declined dramatically, But if the budget proposed by the House Ways and Means Committee is passed, we’ll start to reverse this trend. Per Student Support for Massachusetts Public Higher Education FY2000 – FY2012
PHENOM belongs to the Campaign for the Future of Higher Education (CFHE) . At a recent news briefing, three scholars representing faculty across the U.S. strongly advocated for a change in state and federal funding of public higher ed. Their request— stop capitulating to a dysfunctional NEW NORMAL — was directed at politicians and administrative […]
Only 5 states in the country send a smaller proportion of their state financial aid grants to public colleges. According to a new report by the National Association of State Student Grant and Aid Programs, 53.8% of Massachusetts student aid went to public colleges and 46.2% to private colleges. Only New York, North Carolina, Kansas, […]
No, it’s not faculty salaries. Nor is it “waste and inefficiency”. It’s decline in state support. This report by the U.S. Treasury and Education Departments lays out the facts very clearly and simply. The report also discusses the increasing economic returns to higher education. The findings mirror those found in a recent Massachusetts-specific study by […]
This simple chart shows what has happened to enrollment, faculty, student costs, and state appropriations. It’s quite dramatic. The trends are similar at all the public campuses in Massachusetts.
PHENOM joined the Massachusetts Society of Professors in the State House release of an important new research study: Economic Impact of Investment in Public Higher Education in Massachusetts:: Short-Run Employment Stimulus, Long-Run Public Returns, by Michael Ash, Professor of Economics and Public Policy at UMass Amherst and Shantel Palacio of the Center for Public Policy […]