In a 20-year period state funding went from about 60 percent to less than 20 percent, a common trend. So colleges made up the deficit by increasing tuition yearly to rates that prevented poorer students from attending, unless they accumulated great debt. Schools also went after big donors, who usually were older white elites, or had endowed professorships extolling their Friedmanomic perspective, or entered into development deals for luxury student housing, and we saw researchers tailor their research grant proposals to the defense department because that's where our tax dollars are flowing.

People wonder why Americans are so ignorant to vote against their own interests and for an obvious con man like drumpf. As is pointed out here, this defunding of a liberal education didn't happen in a vacuum. The ruling elites and their henchmen planned it.