In just three years Florida’s higher education funding per student decreased by 40 percent, according to a new report by national public policy center Demos and the Florida-based Research Institute on Social and Economic Policy (RISEP). The situation is only looking grimmer, with the recent $300 million cut to public four-year universities. This new report, “Florida’s Great Cost Shift,” provides new data, warning that extreme cuts to higher education will both cripple Florida’s middle class and hamstring Florida’s ability to meet the demands of tomorrow’s workforce and rising senior population. In coming decades, Floridians will increasingly be shut out from the middle class as higher education degrees become increasingly required but farther out of reach.