\n<\/p>\n
Illinois appropriates more than twice as much money for higher education as the national average.<\/p>\n
Raymond Boyd\/Michael Ochs Archives\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
States and localities spent $130.7\u00a0billion on higher education in fiscal year 2025\u2014the highest sum since 1980, when the State Higher Education Executive Officers Association started tracking public appropriations for higher education. Despite the record spending total, per-student spending declined for the first time since 2012, according to SHEEO\u2019s latest State Higher Education Finance report, published today. <\/p>\n
After adjusting for inflation, total state spending grew 2.6\u00a0percent during fiscal 2025, but the bump wasn\u2019t enough to keep up with enrollment growth\u2014full-time student enrollment at public institutions grew by 3.6\u00a0percent during 2024, to 10.8\u00a0million students. <\/p>\n
Inflation-adjusted, per-student state and local higher education spending declined by 1\u00a0percent, from $12,205 per student in fiscal 2024 to $12,082 per student in fiscal 2025. After accounting for inflation, fiscal 2025 per-student appropriations were still 9.2\u00a0percent higher than in 2008 and 16.4\u00a0percent higher than in 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic. Total inflation-adjusted revenue per full-time student fell by 1.9\u00a0percent to $19,443, marking the third consecutive year of declines. <\/p>\n
\u201cWhile we are encouraged that public funding remained strong in 2025 and enrollment has continued to recover from pandemic lows, the first reduction in per-student funding in more than a decade suggests we are moving into a period of increased volatility,\u201d SHEEO president Rob Anderson said in a news release. \u201cFunding public higher education helps states achieve affordability, attainment, and meet workforce goals, so maintaining a stable and predictable funding environment is important for states to receive a strong and continued return on their investment.\u201d<\/p>\n
Although national state spending totals have swelled, 24 states continue to spend less on higher education than they did before the pandemic, the SHEEO report shows. Louisiana , Nevada and New Hampshire spent the least on higher education per student in fiscal 2025, while Delaware, Illinois and Michigan spent the most. Illinois remains an outlier\u2014appropriating more than twice as much money as the national average\u2014due in part to \u201cefforts to address its historically underfunded state retirement pension system,\u201d the report states.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Illinois appropriates more than twice as much money for higher education as the national average. Raymond Boyd\/Michael Ochs Archives\/Getty Images States and localities spent $130.7\u00a0billion on higher education in fiscal year 2025\u2014the highest sum since 1980, when the State Higher Education Executive Officers Association started tracking public appropriations for higher education. Despite the record spending<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":48138,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[2573,116,199,393,286],"class_list":{"0":"post-48137","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-education","8":"tag-drops","9":"tag-funding","10":"tag-state","11":"tag-student","12":"tag-time"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48137","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=48137"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48137\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/48138"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=48137"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=48137"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=48137"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}