&quot;state funding for higher education has been nearly monotonically decreasing since the 80s&quot;<p>That&#x27;s not because of taxes. Taxes haven&#x27;t gone down.<p>Doctors and Pharma have extracted ever more cash from Medicaid. Wall Street has badly mismanaged public pensions as public unions have demanded ever richer pensions. Prison populations have multiplied. It all adds up to less money in state budgets for education.