Recently, Salon.com writer Andrew Leonard argued that conservatives have declared war on higher education.

Glenn Reynolds notes: Actually, the academic class is doing pretty well on its own.

In Minding the Campus, Andrew P. Kelly and KC Deane fisk Leonard’s arguments, including the fact budget trimming has bipartisan support:

Bipartisan Support for Cutting Higher-Ed

The national trend is marked: between 2009 and 2012, 47 states cut higher education spending per FTE. The median (mean) reduction was just over 23 percent (22 percent). Just three states saw increases: Illinois (unified Democratic government), North Dakota (unified Republican government), and Rhode Island (divided government with Republican governor).

When they have had unified government, both Democrats and Republicans have cut higher education funding. If we look at the seven states with unified Democratic control over this period, six reduced funding. Those six (excluding Illinois’s 2.8 percent increase) reduced funding by between 19 and 31 percent (West Virginia and Washington respectively) for an average reduction of 22.9 percent.

Of the nine states under unified Republican control, eight reduced funding by an average of 25.2 percent, ranging from a 0.2 percent decline in South Dakota to 42.8 percent reduction in Idaho. Texas, one of Leonard’s great villains, reduced funding by 9.2 percent (less than any of the Democratically-controlled states). Florida cut funding by 27 percent, which outranked all but one unified Democratic state. So while Republican-controlled states did cut higher education spending, they were not alone; unified Democratic governments more than held their own. (Of the 17 states with divided government, 16 reduced higher ed spending by an average of 25 percent during the period).

Shifts in which party controls the governorship provide an additional test. Seventeen states experienced a shift in the party of their sitting governor during the period. Among the twelve where a Republican replaced a Democrat, the Democratic governors all oversaw reductions in funding between 2009 and 2010, with an average reduction of about 9 percent. The new Republican governors continued the reductions in ’11-’12, with an average cut of 11.3 percent. Eight out of 12 Republicans oversaw cuts that were larger than those under their Democratic predecessor (including Scott Walker, whose 11.5 percent cut was larger than the 2.2 percent decline over the prior years).

Among the five states with the opposite transition, four of the Republican governors cut funding during ’09-’10 (Vermont increased it) for an average reduction of 8.1 percent. All five incoming Democrats cut funding in ’11-12 by an average of 6.4 percent. Two of the five Democrats oversaw larger cuts than their predecessors.

These data suggest a bipartisan national trend, not a conservative conspiracy. The vast majority of states–whether controlled by Republicans or Democrats–have cut higher education funding in response to budget deficits.