Tuition goes up; state support goes down

Posted Jan 16, 2012 by Lindsay Peterson

Updated Jan 17, 2012 at 02:07 PM

Warning: Numbers ahead.

Managing a university means looking at a lot of data sliced and diced in a lot of different ways.

Admission scores, enrollments, graduation rates, appropriations, revenues, endowments.

When the state Board of Governors meets this week, they’ll see lots of numbers about the universities they oversee, as part of its annual accountability report.

A look at USF’s report shows some distinct downward trends.

Revenue per full-time student was $11,129 three years ago. The 2011-12 estimate: $10,341 – and that’s with a higher-than-ever average tuition, $4,239.

That shows you how much state appropriations have slid, from more than $291 million in 2006-07 to an estimated $239 million for 2011-12.

It also shows that while students and their families paid more, the state took less from the average taxpayer to support higher education.

You can check out the reports for yourself here.

The Board of Governors meets on Wednesday and Thursday in Tallahassee. There’s a lot on the agenda, as usual, including more on the worsening crisis with the school construction fund and a report on a pilot program at USF to help adults with some college credit finally get their degrees. Here’s more on that.

You can go here to see the full agenda.