Kudos for a great job on pointing out the essential problems for higher ed in MT. We desperately need a state based financial aid system. However, the report card should include quality measures such as % full time faculty and faculty pay. Montana is usually last in the nation in faculty pay. The emphasis on cost cutting by progressive elites and conservatives to keep tuition low is starving our Universities, resulting in a “walmartification”. Full time, faculty faculty are being replaced with part-time teachers and, ultimately, recordings in Massive On line Open Classrooms (MOOCs) while research and the creative arts are disappearing from our campuses. As a result, poor and middle class students will be warehoused in cheap, low-quality public schools while wealthy students go to expensive private schools with live instruction by great, nationally respected professors. The end result will be a two-tiered higher education system based on class and wealth. Our national aspirations of providing economic opportunity through access to quality higher education for ALL Americans will die.