PAST IS PROLOGUE: State and Local Funding for Higher Education in the Next Recession - New America

In order to explore the potential impacts of a new recession, we examine historical data on state and local appropriations for higher education, as well as aggregate tuition revenue and enrollment levels. Doing so allows us to predict what could happen in another economic downturn, based on state level responses to the 2001 and 2008 recessions. Although many factors make predicting future policy changes imprecise, this provides a simple framework for thinking about how different state and local governments are likely to respond to a future recession, as well as the impact such an economic event could have on students. http://na-production.s3.amazonaws.com/documents/Past-Prologue.pdf