This [big *Times* story on Indiana University of Pennsylvania](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/28/us/college-coronavirus-tuition.html) buries the lede. The 41st paragraph:
> When the 2008 recession hit, many states decimated the budgets for regional campuses of state schools. From that point through 2018, Pennsylvania’s funding per student for higher education fell 33.8 percent, among the steepest declines in the country. In inflation-adjusted terms, the state gives these schools about $220 million less annually than it did in 2000-1. To make up the difference, base tuition rose steadily beyond the cost of inflation: to $7,716 in 2018-19 from $5,358 in 2008-9. In a nutshell, the burden for supporting the system shifted sharply — from the state to the student. In the 1980s, the state paid 75 percent of a student’s load. Now the student pays nearly 75 percent. In Pennsylvania, the average student debt taken on by graduates of state schools rose 35 percent between 2011 and 2018.
It's a [moving piece of narrative journalism](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/28/us/college-coronavirus-tuition.html) on an American style of class warfare—the accelerating disinvestment in the regional public universities that serve a huge if invisible share of students.