In the year 2000, for instance, the largest primary source of revenue for the University of Missouri was state funding. In that year, money from the state accounted for 62 percent of the university’s funding, and tuition and fees — the cost paid by students and parents — stood at 29 percent.

Since that time, the story of college funding in Missouri is one of two intersecting lines on a graph, with state support going down and the “tax” on students and parents going up, up, up.

In 2010, those lines met at an intersecting X point, with state costs having dropped to about 42 percent and tuition rising to 41 percent as a key source of revenue.

And now, in 2016, when lawmakers and the governor are touting the “highest level ever” of state support for colleges and universities? In fact, the state’s share of University of Missouri revenue is at 35 percent, one point higher than its all-time low in 2014. Parents and students are now paying the freight at a rate of 52 percent, much of that tied up in the nation’s trillion-dollar student loan bubble.

The numbers look just as bad if you compare the percentage of the state’s budget that goes to higher education. I like this comparison because just like personal budgets, it is a good measure of priorities.