Dive Brief:
- Higher education rises to one of the top five policy issues in Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Tennessee and Wisconsin, according to the CQ Roll Call 50 State Project, which asked statehouse reporters in all 50 states for their analyses.
- Georgia is grappling with how to get more money into the popular, lottery-funded HOPE scholarship program and casino interests are vying for a place in the solution, and a Missouri reporter ranks race relations as number one, with the state’s flagship university at its center.
- Higher education funding is a top issue in Illinois, Louisiana and Kentucky, while Wisconsin is battling over how best to make college affordable, and the Tennessee governor is pushing a controversial restructuring of the state’s college system.
Dive Insight:
The elementary and secondary education sphere gets a lot more attention in state houses than higher education, with nearly half of all reporters surveyed naming it to the top five policy issues in the state. School funding, teacher pay, charter school battles and school segregation are key areas of discord. Most of the policy conversation around higher education in state houses is about funding, in one way or another — funding scholarships, funding schools funding student aid.
The high cost of college today is a major issue for students, families, federal elected officials and others. While schools are often blamed for raising tuition, engaging in an amenities arms race and using non-need-based aid to attract otherwise wealthy students, others point to state disinvestment as the driver of increased costs, and in turn, student debt. The fact that higher education funding is not a top policy issue in more states indicates there will not be radical change on the disinvestment front in coming years.