The financial numbers now facing state universities in Kansas are not pretty. Although state revenue figures compiled last week were strong enough to stave off further budget cuts, four earlier rounds of cuts have left universities with funding that is about 11.7 percent below that approved by the Kansas Legislature last year.

Cuts of that magnitude can’t be made painlessly. Even with tuition increases and modest funding from the federal stimulus program, universities haven’t filled the funding gap. Hundreds of university staff positions have been eliminated, courses have been canceled, and support services have been shut down.

During the current tight economy, state universities aren’t the only ones suffering. If universities could look at the current situation as temporary, it would be easier to weather the storm. Unfortunately, a reduction in higher education funding in Kansas is a long-term trend that shows little sign of being reversed.

In an effort to raise public awareness, the Kansas Board of Regents is putting out figures that help illustrate those trends. In 1987, the state was funding about 45 percent of the operating budgets for state universities and tuition was paying about 16 percent. By 2007, the state was supplying only 28 percent of the budget, while tuition was footing 25 percent of the bill.

State legislators often seem unconvinced that universities are making the best possible use of state dollars; there must be a lot of fat that could be cut. With that rationale in mind, perhaps the most eye-opening statistic offered by the regents is the slide in per-pupil funding. Adjusted for inflation, state support per university student declined 18 percent, from $7,435 in 1987 to $6,063 in 2007.

Perhaps legislators who support reduced university budgets can dispute the regents figures, but can anyone reasonably argue that it costs 18 percent less to educate a university student today than it did 20 years ago? That universities can cut staffing, equipment, support services, class sections, etc., by 18 percent and still provide the same quality education they offered in 1987?

Considerable criticism has been leveled in this space of universities’ annual demand for increased tuition, but clearly state legislators also must share that blame. Rising tuition is in danger of putting a university education out of reach for worthy students from middle class families, but as state support has declined, one of the few options available to university officials is to use tuition to offset the losses.

This is a tough year for state universities. It would be easier to bear if universities could expect better financial support from the state when the economy rebounds. Through their budget decisions, however, legislators have shown a steady erosion in the priority they place on the state’s higher education system, a system that not only educates Kansas young people but also fuels the state economy through research and training programs.

Sooner or later, the state’s economy will turn around. We can only hope that, when it does, the attitudes of state legislators toward higher education will do the same.