State Budgets Fall on Hard Times, Possibly Imperiling Spending on Higher Education

A note in the Chronicle blog:

The economic upswing that most states have been enjoying since 2005 appears to have come to an end across much of the United States, according to a report being released this week by the National Conference of State Legislatures, and that trend could herald declines in state spending on higher education.

After experiencing improvements in their finances at the end of the 2005 and 2006 fiscal years, a majority of states saw their fiscal conditions decline over the 2007 fiscal year, which ended on June 30 in most states, the report says.