Cuts to Alabama’s higher education are making it harder for low- and middle-income students to earn their degrees and those reductions are jeopardizing the state’s economic competitiveness, Arise Citizens’ Policy Project (ACPP) said late last month.
The nonprofit coalition, which works on policies to help low-income residents, points to per student dollar decreases of $4,546, which have resulted in tuition soaring more than 50 percent since fiscal 2008. The higher education cuts since the Great Recession began are the country’s sixth worst, ACPP said in a statement, citing a March report from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. 
“Eviscerating our colleges and universities is not the way to save an ailing economy,” Kimble Forrister, ACPP executive director, said in a statement.
“We need to open the doors of opportunity wider for low- and middle-income Alabamians who want to build better lives. But by saddling them with enormous debt or pricing them out of college entirely, we’re often slamming those doors shut instead.”
One possible outcome of the lower state support for higher education, Forrister added, is that Alabama’s economy is being deprived of skilled workers for the future.
The state’s per-student reduction of $4,546 since fiscal 2008 is the third highest in the country, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities report found. Alabama is behind Louisiana and New Mexico. On average, states are spending $2,353 less per student, Arise reported.
Comparing fiscal 2008 to this year, Alabama experienced a 39.8 percent drop in higher education support, Arise said in its statement, taking into account inflation. The national average drop for a state’s higher education support during the same period was 28 percent.
The fewer dollars for higher education are occurring at a time when the median household income in Alabama has dropped and tax benefits, grants and other aid are not enough to address the tuition spike, Arise said.
Arise Citizens’ Policy Project, based in Montgomery, Ala., is a coalition of 150 groups and congregations working on public policies to help low-income residents. Arise started in 1998.