For example, when I joined the California State University in 1997, student tuition accounted for about 20% of the cost of attendance, with the remainder subsidized by the state legislature. That's the public part of public higher education, the investment that states make in their future workforce and citizenry. Since then, tuition has nearly tripled because the state contribution has declined-- student tuition must now cover just less than half the cost of attendance rather than the 20% it covered just 15 years ago.
And that's just the CSU, which started from a position as one of the last great bargains in higher ed in the US. Most other state universities already subsidized a much lower proportion of the cost of attendance when states began slashing their higher ed budgets about ten years or so ago. Most people never see the real cost of higher ed, but these days they're seeing more of it than anytime in the last couple of generations.
on edit: To put the faculty salary issue in perspective, I received a 3 percent raise in 2007, the first I had gotten in two years, i.e. since 2005. Since 2007 I have been promoted, so I went up the salary schedule to full professor, but other than that change in pay grade I have not received any raises-- 0%-- since 2007. In 2010 we took a 10% pay cut through involuntary furloughs. My bargaining unit just signed a four year contract at continued 0% salary increase across the board. All faculty, no salary increases. None. AND management reserved the right to reopen bargaining on salary and benefits if it feels the need to LOWER them.
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