"As legislatures face their toughest budget year since the recession began, the idea of giving a few universities autonomy to control their own finances has some appeal," Stateline.org reports. "So-called privatization proposals have come up in every recession for the last 20 years, and a few states have loosened the reins on their top universities. The result is that a handful of the nation's top-ranked state universities gradually have become more like private institutions -- with less state support, more out-of-state students and tuitions that exceed the average price tag for private colleges, about $26,000 per year. ... But as the recession squeezes more people out of the job market and onto college campuses, those opposed to privatizing state universities argue that states must continue to support all levels of higher education, including community colleges, research institutions and four-year colleges, or risk losing their competitive edge when it comes to attracting new businesses. The fiscal health of the entire state system would suffer even more, they say, if the prestigious universities were taken out of the equation."