Gov. Scott Walker's administration this year is making the spending cuts and some raids on pots of state money to help balance the state budget, which still has an additional projected deficit of $143 million through June 2013 even after this latest round of spending reductions.

Gov. Corbett insisted to reporters that his 2012-13 plan for a steep new cuts in state aid to higher education - including 30 percent less money to state-backed schools such as Penn State and Temple - could be dealt with by reducing campus operating costs, not by raising tuition.

With a month left in the lawmaking session, the House budget that passed largely along party lines remains out of sync with the Senate's spending priorities on a few major issues - such as health-care and environmental spending.

A key element of the budget is Jindal's pension reform plan, which includes provisions to increase the retirement age to 67 for employees younger than 55, require employees to contribute 3 percentage points more of their paychecks to their retirement, enroll new employees in a 401(k)-style plan and merge two of the state's four retirement systems.

Gov. Corbett is proposing a $27.13 billion budget that again sticks to his campaign pledge not to raise taxes, but calls for steep cuts to higher education and mostly level funding for public schools and services for the state's poor and disabled.

The sixth-annual Tennessee Pork Report is chock-full yet again, of waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement of taxpayer money by state and local government officials. Despite a changing political landscape in Tennessee, wasteful government spending has not disappeared.

An evaluation of the current system of higher education accreditation as well as proposed reforms on all of the most important dimensions and demonstrates how public policies addressing one issue can create or exacerbate problems in others.

In some cases, the institutions of higher education in Misouri are doing a great job; in others, not so well. The purpose of the report is not to be punitive, but to address ways higher education in Missouri can be more accountable and transparent. The report is designed to showcase information and data of interest to students, parents, alumni, and taxpayers.

Are students learning the things they need to know? Is there a healthy exchange of ideas? Are trustees upholding the public trust? Are taxpayers getting a good value for their money? These are the kinds of questions to which the people of Minnesota deserve answers. It is the goal of this report card to provide answers and to help Minnesota—a state rightly known for its passion for education—be a national standard bearer for excellence, accountability, and efficiency in higher education.

At the most basic level, the course on which Illinois' public universities find themselves is unsustainable. Costs are rising too quickly, and quality is not high enough.

A guide to needed reforms in pensions, taxes and higher education, among other areas, with  two types of goals that are important when working towards limiting government: long-term policy objectives that show the end-game goals and short-term policies that steer public policy towards the long-term goals. This guide provides both.

Ten ideas to cut waste and balance the buget without raising taxes, including more efficient K-12 funding, spending high education tax dollars more wisely and rein in state employee salaries and benefits.

In light of Oregon facing a budget crisis, the Taxpayer Foundation has issued a master list of budget balancing ideas that do not require raising taxes. These ideas have been collected from Oregon lawmakers, think tank groups, taxpayer organizations, unions, policy analysts, Democrats, Republicans and even ideas utilized in states across the nation.

Establish limited priorities for Oklahoma’s state government. Once limited priorities are set, everything else should be considered according to these priorities. The state currently has hundreds of agencies, boards, and commissions; it’s no wonder there is chronic overspending and regular “revenue shortfalls.”

With shrinking budgets and growing demand for immediate solutions, lawmakers need to know what questions to ask and where to turn for fast, reliable information to make informed higher education policy decisions.

ALEC has a variety of model legislation addressing several different aspects of higher education, including accountability, quality and funding.