Last week, the Pew Charitable Trusts released an issue brief on U.S. higher education funding. In this brief, the Trusts presented some valuable information on state-level education spending.
Using this data, we can compare higher education spending in Ohio to higher education spending in neighboring states.
Ohio is fairly middle of the pack when looking at per-student spending on higher education. Ohio spends about $10,000 more per student than Indiana and West Virginia and about $10,000 less per student than Michigan and Pennsylvania. Ohio’s per-student spending is closer to Kentucky, which spends about $2,500 more per student than Ohio. This is a little surprising since Kentucky is more poor and Indiana is more wealthy than Ohio as a whole.
Data from the Pew Charitable Trusts
Ohio falls in the same place in the pecking order when just looking at per-student tuition costs, with tuition in Ohio a few thousand more than in Kentucky and a few thousand less than in Pennsylvania. Here, though, you see higher education spending rates more matching poverty rates, with Kentucky and West Virginia charging less for tuition and Pennsylvania more.
Data from the Pew Charitable Trusts
Michigan is a bit different than you would expect, though, with higher tuition despite being a medium-poverty state for the area. While Michigan and Ohio’s median incomes and poverty rates are both nearly identical to one another, college tuition is much higher in Michigan than in Ohio.
Tax spending, or state revenue spent on higher education, is a different picture. Here, you see Kentucky and West Virginia spending more of their state taxes on higher education than Michigan and Pennsylvania, suggesting that Michigan and Pennsylvania lean more on student tuition to fund higher education while Kentucky and West Virginia fund more of their higher education through taxes. Indiana is the exception here, putting forth more tax revenue and charging higher tuition than the average state in the region. Ohio, like other measures, is middle of the road.
Data from the Pew Charitable Trusts
Federal revenue is the only category where Ohio falls behind each of its neighboring states, only bringing in about $3,400 in federal revenue per student. Interestingly, Michigan and Pennsylvania, which have the highest tuitions and contribute the least in state taxes towards higher education, also receive the most per-student in federal funding. This is likely because of federal research grants, which tend to be won by top-tier research institutions, which are more common in Michigan and Pennsylvania than other states in the region.
Data from the Pew Charitable Trusts
Since the economic benefits of basic research are more likely to bleed across state lines than human capital from higher education, this trend follows sound economic logic. That being said, federal dollars also include financial aid dollars, so this suggests that research dollars are overwhelming financial aid dollars in these states. From a local standpoint, these numbers also show that Ohio is a less attractive place for the federal government to invest its resources than any of its neighboring states.
Disparities in funding become very clear when looking at the impacts of private gifts and investments on state higher education funding. Ohio only draws about half as much income on a per-student basis from gifts and investments as Michigan does. For Kentucky, that number is only about a quarter.
Data from the Pew Charitable Trusts
Finally, let’s look at the oddest category of revenue: self-supporting operations. Self-supporting operations include revenue from the operation of campus services (e.g., residence halls, intercollegiate athletics, and college stores), hospitals, and independent operations. While Ohio generates a few thousand dollars per student less in self-supporting operations than Kentucky, Pennsylvania, or Michigan, it generates much more than Indiana and West Virginia, which each only generate about $4,000 in self-supporting operations revenue per student. This suggests that either on-campus amenities or independent operations such as hospitals are dramatically less prominent in Indiana and West Virginia than the other four states in the region.
Data from the Pew Charitable Trusts
Overall, the most striking pattern in this data is Ohio’s normality. In nearly every category, Ohio falls in the middle of the region, with the notable exception of federal funding. This suggests that Ohio could do more to bolster its work as a research state, though it could also suggest a focus on teaching in the state over research. Another explanation is that the state may be doing less than other states to help students take advantage of federal financial aid, which, if true, could exacerbate inequality in the state.