The state's average per capita income is approximately 80 percent of the national average. This creates a greater dependency on public four-year education. Moreover, Alabama's universities follow a strict guide for course creation and implementation. Even though, they are funded at 60 percent of the regional standard, as determined by the Southern Regional Education Board out of Atlanta, they still have been willing to put themselves under the microscope. The higher education reform legislation of the mid-1990's has led to the elimination of over 1000 university programs because they did not meet the efficiency standards.
Universities are accountable and public higher education is the key to Alabama's economic future.
If the state funded higher education like other states in the region, Alabama would not rank 37th in the nation in the number of citizens with college degrees. Even more, state leaders take into account the difference in student numbers when they appropriate 70 percent of the new money to K-12 and 30 percent to higher education. Considering how much more it costs to educate a person in biochemistry than it does to teach a second grader, the funding is definitely skewed toward K-12. It must be that Alabama Education Association chief Paul Hubbert is just a sore loser. Hubbert didn't get exactly what he wanted during the Legislature's special session on the education funding crisis, so now he's lashing out, like a spoiled child who didn't get his way on the playground.