Just Facts Daily

Taxpayer Funding of Colleges

Adjusted for inflation, has the average government funding for each college student increased or decreased since the year 2000?

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Inflation-adjusted government funding for each college student has increased by 31% since 2000. Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, and certain media outlets have blamed steep rises in college tuition on reduced government funding for higher education, but inflation-adjusted funding for each college student is currently at an all-time high and has nearly tripled since 1960. Tuition has risen primarily because colleges are spending more money per student. In conjunction with this, colleges have significantly reduced academic workloads, inflated grades, and failed to instill practical and literacy skills in significant portions of their students.

DocumentationHigher Education Costs College Tuition Falsehoods College Outcomes

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“Illegal” v. “Undocumented”

The View’s Sunny Hostin claims that an illegal alien who killed a nurse in a drunk driving incident is “not illegal” but “undocumented” because “people are not illegal.”

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IN FACT, “undocumented” is a deceptive term used to obscure the reality of people violating immigration laws. Here are the specifics:

Per a 2014 article in a Journal of Legal Writing, “the term ‘illegal alien’” appears 14 times in federal laws, 10 times in federal regulations, and in 57 U.S. Supreme Court opinions, but “some self-appointed language regulators” in the media “now decree that writers who wish to remain members of polite society must not use ‘illegal alien’” but other phrases like “undocumented immigrant.”
The article further explains that “most people know what ‘illegal alien’ means,” but purveyors of “word games” are trying to “change the political narrative” by using phrases like “undocumented worker,” which “conjures the image” of someone “who forgets to bring his social-security card on his first day of work.”
Likewise, Garner’s Dictionary of Legal Usage explains that words like “undocumented” are “needless euphemisms” that “should be avoided” because they “strongly” suggest “unaccounted for,” which can “obscure” the fact that these people are “present in a country in violation of the immigration laws (hence ‘illegal’).”
Certain people allege that it is incorrect to use the term “illegal alien” because “undocumented presence in the U.S. is not a criminal offense,” but Garner’s Dictionary of Legal Usage refutes this argument by noting that “it is wrong to equate illegality with criminality, since many illegal acts are not criminal.”
In addition to being an attorney, Hostin is a “multi-platform journalist,” and journalism guidelines disparage the use of jargon and call for unambiguous language that plainly conveys reality.

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