Even considering the numerous factors which contribute to the current state of
educational descent in America, current fallacies in the economic facets of educational policy are
strongly correlated to faults in the American education system. State government budgeting
constraints contribute to downward trends in academic funding and student financial aid, born of
a desire to alleviate taxation on the local populace and the presence of innumerable budget
pressure points which vie for limited funding. The financially exclusive nature of private
nonprofit colleges and universities are characterized by an increase in net tuition and a shift in
the responsibility for college expenditures towards students and their families. The disparity
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One aspect of these aforementioned economic constraints, the state government, serves a
major role in the economics of education, providing both students and public academic
institutions financial aid in a manner which makes them heavily dependent upon state support.
Public academic institutions derive the majority of their funding from the state government;
community colleges depend on this source of funding even more so, due to their lack of varied
revenue sources. However, state financial aid for public higher education institutions has
declined steadily, even as student enrollment rates increase (The Economics of Higher
Education). The indirect correlation of these factors resulted in perstudent funding reaching a
thirtyyear low (Daniel). As a result of this decrease in state funding, college students were
forced to rely on federal loans for funding (McKinney). The burden of carrying a college loan is
addressed by Ms. Martinez, a college graduate student, who comments on recent changes in
higher education policy making the ability to pay back accumulating college loans an
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The constant strain on the state government to alleviate taxation, causing a diversion of
resources from academia, can be similarly considered a part of the gaping lacunae in academic
funding where governmental funding previously occupied (Hungerford).
Another factor of economic constraints contributing to decreasing American educational
standards lies in the financial policies of academic institutions as a selfsufficient body. The
acceptance standards held by the various higher education institutions of America rest heavily on
exclusive criterion, a great majority of which ties back to monetary hindrances on the attainment
of education and an overall decline in American education. The demographic of higher education
in America can be divided into three broad subgroups: private nonprofit, public forprofit, and
public institutions. Private nonprofit institutions are the most independent of government
funding out of each subgroup of academia, and typically include institutions which