Just two states in the country are spending as much on higher education per student as they did before the recession.

North Dakota and Alaska increased higher education spending by 38% and 6% respectively between 2008 and 2014, according to a report released Thursday by Young Invincibles, a nonprofit millennial advocacy group, which has pushed a platform for debt-free college that includes increased state investment. Every other state cut higher education funding during the same period, the report found. On average, states cut per student spending by 21% during that period.

Young Invincibles graded each state on its levels of investment in higher education based on factors such as per student spending, average tuition and financial aid programs. Young Invincibles

Even as the economy recovers, states’ level of funding for their higher education institutions hasn’t bounced back, the report found. The reasons for the cutbacks (or in two cases, the growth) in spending on colleges and universities vary based on state budget constraints, revenues and other factors. For example, it’s likely North Dakota and Alaska were able to boost their higher education spending in part thanks to increased oil revenues, a resource not available in every state, said Tom Allison, the report’s author.

But there may also be a broader explanation for continued disinvestment in higher education, which is that it’s easy for policy makers to put funding for colleges and universities on the chopping block because constituents don’t get as agitated by the cuts as they would about say, a tax increase, Allison said.

“You don’t have folks calling their legislators, calling their governors and paying close attention to the details of their state’s higher education budgets,” said Allison.

States with the largest cuts to higher education, according to Young Invincibles. Young Invincibles

States with the smallest cuts to higher education, according to Young Invincibles. Young Invincibles

But they should be, he says, because a cut in the state’s higher education budget can have a direct impact on a family’s budget. Between 2008 and 2014—the same time states were walking back their investment in public colleges and universities -- tuition and fees at two-year and four-year public universities rose 28% on average. “The skyrocketing student debt we see is a symptom of a disease and the disease we see is state disinvestment from higher education,” said Allison, Young Invincibles’ deputy director of policy and research.

Given that state governments are required to balance their budgets every year, they may be hard pressed to step up their higher education funding without some kind of incentive, Allison said. Still, the report notes that Ohio, Maryland and Missouri did manage to put the brakes on tuition growth of tuition fees during the period studied by the report.

Of course, the report isn’t the first to draw a connection between state disinvestment in higher education and rising tuition or growing student debt. But Allison hopes that arming residents with information about how their state is treating its public colleges and universities and how that affects their pocketbooks may encourage students, their parents and others to ask their lawmakers to better fund their higher education institutions.

Democratic presidential candidates have offered plans to address state disinvestment in higher education, including front-runner Hillary Clinton’s proposal to award grants to states that make sure students don’t have to borrow for tuition at four-year colleges and universities. Republican candidates have offered a mix of approaches to addressing student debt, including encouraging more private individuals and companies to invest in students in return for a portion of their salary postgraduation and boosting innovative higher education models such as online courses.

“It’s going to be necessary to have some national leadership” on the issue, Allison said. “The recession had serious consequences on this generation -- trying to pay for college at a time when states are basically pulling the rug out from underneath them or trying to get a job during the worst economy since the great recession.”