Budgets Half Empty, Glass Half Full - Kevin Kiley, Inside Higher Ed

The lasting image from the 2011 state budget process might be higher education leaders in Pennsylvania asking lawmakers to accept cuts to college and university budgets of “only 19 percent." While in any other year 19 percent would seem like an astronomical cut, it is several steps back from the governor’s original proposal of a 50 percent cut in state appropriations. This was the year everything was supposed to fall apart for state budgets. Lawmakers, higher education leaders, and policy researchers expected massive cuts to all state agencies, including public colleges and universities, as a result of evaporating federal stimulus funds, sagging revenues, more fiscally conservative lawmakers, and ballooning structural deficits created by medical and other entitlement obligations. Cuts were supposed to hit every level of public institution, from the research universities to community colleges.