Boston.com / News / Local / Mass. colleges see costs rise, aid fall: "Massachusetts cut spending on grants and scholarships for college students by more than $20 million in the past five years, at the same time enrollments increased, and public campuses, battered by state budget cuts, boosted tuition and fees by 50 to 75 percent, according to state budget records and officials."
The result is that fewer needy students are receiving state aid, and many grant awards are smaller than they were in the past, financial aid administrators said.
The state's decision to offer less financial aid while also drastically reducing campus funding differs from the approach of many other states, where officials said financial aid budgets were held steady or increased during the recent recession in an attempt to keep poor students in college.
But in Massachusetts, spending on grants and scholarships fell 22 percent in five years, from a peak of $105 million in fiscal 2000 to $82 million this year. State support for the budgets of the 29 public campuses, which enroll more than 180,000 students, declined at a similar rate.
The Globe's analysis is a bit unfair. Blue governors have indeed increased financial aid as to counter the efforts of Il Ducetto to limit the access of non-wealthy Americans to higher education. Romney's red, however, and the ability of the children of those who aren't rich to go to college is simply not an agenda priority for him. It's just not news that the red governor of a blue state would try to screw working citizens.
