From a New York Times piece on state budget cuts to higher education:

“There has been a shift from the belief that we as a nation benefit from higher education, to a belief that it’s the people receiving the education who primarily benefit and so they should foot the bill,”

– Ronald G. Ehrenberg, Director of the Cornell Higher Education Research Institute

According to this report from the Center for the Study of Education Policy, (cited in the Times piece), state appropriations for colleges fell by 7.6 percent in 2011-12, the largest annual decline in at least 50 years.