On Monday the Des Moines Register Opinion page took a look at the issue of funding for our state universities. I have written about this issue a couple times including here.The Register included letters from all 3 university Presidents and an interesting graph.

The graph showed that in 1981 the state universities got 77.4% of their funding from the state and just 20.8% from tuition. In 2006, the state universities got 49.1% of their funding from the state and 44.1% from tuition. This is a massive shift in priorities over the past 25 years. The President's of the 3 state universities argue that it hurts the quality of faculty, the state loses research dollars, and our children lose out on a quality education.