In recent years, public universities have faced a troubling question: Can they remain financially solvent while serving their own residents at the low tuition rates that were common several decades ago?
With the continuing decline in legislative appropriations for higher education, public universities are trying to fill the gap by recruiting higher-paying out-of-state students.
This is part of a frantic effort by public universities around the country to sustain a financial model they inherited from the 1950s and 1960s. That model relied upon generous state appropriations to subsidize low-cost tuition for qualified state residents, while allowing a minority of out-of-state students to matriculate at inflated rates.
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