A Comparison between Total Budget and Education Spending Growth in Massachusetts (FY10-FY20)
The state budget of Massachusetts grew slowly in the years following the Great Recession. Between FY10 and FY13, the total budget increased by a slight 1.7%. Yet in the following years from FY13 to F16, the budget grew at an accelerated pace of 17.4%. However, afterwards the growth of the total budget slowed — increasing by only 4% from FY16 to FY20. Overall the total budget increased by 24.1% during this period and had an annual compound growth rate of 2%.
As the total budget staggered between FY10-FY13, the education budget fell by -2.2% (a nearly 5% cut between FY10-FY12). Growth rebounded FY13-FY16 — a gain of 8.7%. Yet between FY16-FY20 growth turned negative again FY16-FY18 (-0.6%) and rose FY18-FY20 (6.6%). In total from FY16-FY20, the education budget increased by 6%. Overall, the education budget increased by 12.6% FY10-FY20 and had an annual compound growth rate of 1.1%.
The Higher Education budget followed a similar trend as the Education budget. FY10-FY13 saw a large dip in funding at -13%. It was not until FY15 that the Higher Education budget recovered. From FY13-FY16, the Higher Education budget grew by 21%. From FY16-FY20, the Higher Ed budget followed a v-shaped pattern — decreasing by -3.9% FY16-FY18 and increasing by 4.8% FY18-FY20 with a total increase of 0.67%. Overall, during FY10-FY20 the Higher Education budget increased by 5.7% and had an annual compound growth rate of 0.5%.
The UMass budget item declined sharply FY10-FY13 by -22%. From FY13 to FY16 there was a gradual recovery — state funds grew by 32%. However, between FY16-FY19, the UMass budget declined by -5.4%. Furthermore, the FY20 increases UMass’ budget by 5%. Overall from FY10 to FY20, the UMass budget item increased by 2.5% and had an annual compound growth rate of 0.2%
On the whole, education spending in Massachusetts has not kept up with the growth of the total budget from FY10 to FY20. In the previous four years, the education budget has been volatile with little assurance of future stability and growth. Though the past two years have been encouraging for the education budget, only a small share of the education budget growth has gone to higher education. Despite a five percent increase over the past year, appropriations to UMass have been close to stagnant over the past decade. Extending the time frame of this analysis further back reveals that both higher education and spending towards UMass was higher in FY2001. Thus, much more needs to be done to ensure that higher education receives its fair share of funding in future state budgets.
