Trends in College Spending: 2003–2013 examines college and university finances during one of the most turbulent economic periods in decades. The financial ramifications of the 2008 recession were vast, affecting students’ ability to pay for college, lawmakers’ prioritization of public resources, and the budgetary environment facing higher education leaders. The challenges brought by the fiscal crisis also provided colleges and universities with an opportunity to reevaluate how they allocated resources and rethink how to manage costs and improve student outcomes. Like previous Trends in College Spending reports, this update is meant to aid readers in developing a deeper understanding of how colleges collect and spend money and the outcomes they produce. Financial and performance trends during the 2003–2013 decade suggest that, five years after the onset of the recession, higher education finally began to show signs of a fiscal recovery. Spending increases were widespread in 2013, with all types of public and private institutions spending, on average, more per student than the year before. Public and private research and master’s institutions experienced the strongest resurgence, as educational spending per student returned near the peak levels observed before the recession. The strongest revenue growth occurred among public research universities and private institutions. Public community colleges also saw a particularly strong financial turnaround in 2013, aided by sharp enrollment declines that eased strained budgets and boosted per-student financial measures, although they remained well below their prerecession operating levels. Nonetheless, the growth in revenue and spending within a decade overshadow two dispiriting—and related—changes. First, although after half a decade of state disinvestment in higher education, perstudent funding levels looked better in 2013, they were nevertheless well below levels seen earlier in the decade and unlikely to fully recover soon. Second, as a result of lower public support, students now pay a majority of education-related institutional costs—indicating that even when faced with significant revenue constraints, colleges and universities were unwilling or unable to make drastic spending cuts. Instead, they turned to students to increasingly finance their operations, further reinforcing the notion of education as a private, rather than a public, good. There were some encouraging trends as educational outcomes saw sustained improvement in the decade. Colleges and universities awarded more degrees and certificates, and degree productivity rose sharply at the end of the decade. The institutional cost of producing those credentials also declined during the decade, suggesting that gains in degree productivity and cost efficiency are not necessarily opposite sides of the same coin. But upticks in the cost per degree in 2013 suggest these advances may be short-lived. 2 | Delta Cost Project HIGHLIGHTS • Spending increased across all types of public and private institutions from 2012 to 2013. Among public four-year colleges and universities, education and related (E&R) spending1 rose, on average, by 2 to 3 percent, the largest such increase since the start of the recession in 2008. Public and private research universities and master’s institutions had largely rebounded from recession-related spending cuts by 2013. • The financial position of community colleges showed significant improvement in 2013 as enrollment continued to decline. Stretched thin by a rapid 25 percent rise in full-time equivalent (FTE) enrollment from 2007 to 2011, community colleges saw a boost in average total revenues per FTE student for the first time since 2008 (3 percent), thanks to a second consecutive year of enrollment declines (–4 percent). E&R spending per FTE student rose substantially (5 percent) for the second consecutive year. Despite these improvements, community colleges’ financial position remained far below levels observed at the beginning of the recession. • After four years of significant declines, sharp cuts in state and local appropriations subsided in 2013. Aided by falling enrollments, state and local funding per FTE student increased at community colleges (5 percent) and public bachelor’s colleges (1 percent) from 2012 to 2013. Even the one-year decline of nearly 2 percent at public research universities was an improvement over recent years, when appropriations fell as much as 9 percent in a single year; appropriations were unchanged at public master’s institutions. But state and local funding per student remained 20 to 30 percent lower than in 2008 at all types of public institutions, on average. • Colleges and universities no longer shifted additional operating costs onto students in 2013, but tuition revenue still financed a majority of education-related spending at public and private four-year institutions. The share of educational costs paid by student tuitions—ranging from roughly 50 to 62 percent, on average—did not change at public four-year institutions from 2012 to 2013; at public community colleges, it declined by 1 percentage point to 38 percent. Private institutions lowered the average tuition share of costs for a second straight year. These recent changes were not enough, however, to offset years of sustained increases across higher education, including an approximate 10 percentage point rise among public institutions since 2008. • Degree and certificate production grew throughout the decade amid steadily declining costs in the recession’s aftermath; in 2013, however, a reversal occurred at some types of institutions. Degree productivity increased progressively in the decade, with the sharpest growth beginning in 2011 at most types of institutions, even amid tight budgets. Colleges and universities showed efficiency improvements, for these increases successfully drove down the average production cost per completion after the recession, particularly at public colleges and universities, where average production costs were lower in 2013 than in 2003. But in 2013, these gains appeared in jeopardy at private institutions and public research universities as costs per completion began to rise.

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