Cuts in higher education are always very short sighted IMHO. Like cutting the Operations and Maintenance budget for the military-it leads to short term savings and long term problems.
I read one state that had dietiticians and nutritionists from one of their state schools redesign the menus in their prisons to get maximum value for the buck. Naturally the inmates all whined the food was "yucky".
Too many states have done end runs around their voters with endless "moral obligation" bond issues. The result of course is too much debt service with default not an option so they end trying to get 100% of their savings and budget
cuts out of 75% of their budget.