Michael Bayne has done everything you're supposed to do to avoid taking on too much debt for college. He lives off-campus to save money on housing. He's always working at least one job -- sometimes two. And he enrolled at an in-state public school, Arizona State University.
But it's not nearly enough. The $2,500 in grants Bayne received this semester covered less than half of his tuition at Arizona State. A decade ago, the same amount of aid would have been enough to pay his entire bill.
"My parents don't have money to help me, so to help pay for tuition, pay for books, pay for everything, I work a full-time job," he said. "And I still have $17,000 in student loans."
It used to be that students such as Bayne could attend a public university and graduate with little to no debt. Then came the recession, when state governments slashed funding of higher education and families began paying higher tuition bills.
Now, even as the economy recovers and taxpayer revenue is pouring back in, states have not restored their funding, and tuition keeps rising, leaving parents and students scrambling to cover costs.
Total student debt now surpasses $1 trillion and is growing by the day. For the first time ever, according to a recent study, families are shouldering more of the cost of public university tuition than state governments.
No state has cut its higher-education funding more since the recession than Arizona, which slashed per-student spending by 48 percent since 2008, from $6,387 per student to $3,305 per student, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a think tank. All but two states in the country -- Alaska and North Dakota -- are spending less per student than they did before the downturn.
Tuition at public universities, meanwhile, has risen. Annual published tuition at four-year public colleges has risen by $1,936, or 28 percent, since the 2007-08 school year, after adjusting for inflation.
States across the country are wrestling with decisions over whether to raise taxes or cut programs to replenish funding for colleges.
Arizona is facing a $1.5 billion deficit. And local law prohibits policymakers from touching the budgets of many state programs, but not higher education.
Last month, Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey announced $75 million in further cuts to higher education in his budget proposal. That represents about 10 percent of the funding that the state provides the universities.
Arizona once had one of the most affordable university systems in the country. Its three schools -- Arizona State University, the University of Arizona and Northern Arizona University -- received $1 billion a year from the state's general fund, which kept in-state tuition below the national average.
Then came the housing bust, and state revenue plummeted. Arizona cut tens of millions of dollars to support its universities. Administrators eliminated more than 2,100 positions and 182 colleges, schools, programs or departments.
At the same time, full-time enrollment at state schools increased 10 percent, as students sought degrees to help them in a dismal job market.
But many states were setting aside less money for grants and scholarships. Federal Pell grants for low-income students now cover just over a third of college costs.
Public universities have had some success in pressuring state legislatures to increase funding as the economy recovers.
Arizona has restored $90 million for its universities in recent years. Tuition has leveled off.
"As dollars were available over the past couple of years, our legislature has recommitted funding. However, since then the state budget position has darkened," said Eileen Klein, president of the Arizona board of regents.
She said that before the recession, 65 percent of the universities' funding came from the state. Now it's down to 25 percent.
With states withdrawing funding, universities have searched for alternative sources of money or tried to break away from the public system. The University of Virginia, for instance, began discussing the possibility of cutting ties with the state government in 2013 for more freedom to raise tuition and accept out-of-state students, who pay two or three times the tuition charged to locals.
Arizona State University President Michael Crow has struck a number of deals with foundations and companies. The broader Arizona strategy has been to enroll more out-of-state students.
Critics say this hurts low-income residents because many schools offer merit-based aid to attract nonresidents, rather than directing that money to the neediest students.
In the meantime, students such as Bayne continue to fall behind. By his sophomore year at Arizona State, his grades started to slip while he worked a part-time job on campus and another one at a security firm. The balancing act ultimately led him to fall far enough behind that he had to stay at school a fifth year -- taking on more debt.
"Trying to balance full-time work and a full-time course load, I just wasn't ready for it," Bayne said.
A Section on 02/01/2015