A Simple Unifying Measure of State Support for Higher Education

Abstract

Conflicting measures of state support for higher education create confusion and misunderstanding that convolute debates about states' postsecondary education funding. The use of multiple measures is largely unnecessary, though. A simple single measure is constructed that adequately quantifies both states' postsecondary need and states' ability to pay. Specifically, this study proposes measuring state support for higher education as state postsecondary funding per high school graduate over the previous four years per dollar of per capita income.