In an interview with the Glenwood Springs Post Independent, CSU President Tony Frank said health care costs will “eat up the rest of the budget pie,” leaving me and my Colorado state public education with a very small piece. As the Post Independent explained:

Twenty years ago, about 65 percent of public higher education spending in Colorado came from tax dollars and 35 percent from tuition. Today, that ratio has more than flipped, with state funding contributing no more than 30 percent and tuition covering the other 70 percent.”

If health care costs are causing students to now pay double for their higher education, how much of that money being spent on my generation?

According to the Atlantic, not much.

…elderly patients, aged 65 or older, made up 13.2% of the population in 2009. But they were 42.9 of the patients among the top 10% of spenders in both 2008 and 2009. Middle-aged Americans made up another 40.1% of that category.”

Tony Frank has a hefty prediction for CSU future:

The path we are on, in the next five to 10 years we’ll essentially be privatized.”

10 years from now I’ll no longer be a student of CSU (probably…), and by then health care will be a bigger concern in my life. But right now, my cost for higher education is steadily rising because of state money being spent on sick older people. Is the budget-ratio in need of some shifting?

Also,

This photo of Tony Frank and Tom Milligan is worth seeing.