Students bear the brunt of cuts to land grant colleges

The issue we want to focus on in this column is the funding of land-grant universities and colleges. n recent years we have been dismayed by the significant decline in the share of the cost of operating these land-grant institutions being borne by the federal and state governments. The result of this has been the increasing dependence of these educational institutions on student tuition, grants (public, charitable, and commercial), and philanthropy. From our perspective, the most critical issue to be addressed is the increasing dependence of land-grants and other public institutions of higher education on student tuition. We were both able to graduate debt-free even though we received minimal financial support from our families. Tuitions were low, student employment was available, and the funding from the state and federal governments were a higher portion of the cost of operating these schools.