Even during the Pawlenty years, the State of MN increased its funding to MnSCU and the U of MN schools at a rate that exceeded inflation. The problem hasn't been funding, the problem has been on the side of the universities, and yes, our culture in general. The demand curve for four-year degrees had been shifting rightward along the supply curve for a long time, starting in the 80s, and continuing until the last five or so years. Rightward shifts in the demand curve always correlate to higher prices. Universities noted that trend and increased their tuition and fees to account for that shift.
While I think colleges and universities take the lion's share of the blame in higher ed. pricing, we've enabled it by pushing the state and federal governments to increase grants and low interest loans. We as a society gave a de facto response that encouraged schools to continue with their pricing behavior. Now society has started to balk, and some (very few) schools have started to respond by finding ways to lower tuition rates.
Funny little story about this. My Senior Thesis professor was the economic department chairman. During one of our 1:1 meetings, he told me about the perverse method of how he's rated by the school for performing his job. His entire rating as chair was based upon reviews given of him to the university by the other professors in the department - the people who report to him. So his job was to do any little thing he can to placate his subordinates, which he then said in a plainer language: it means that his job was to find ways to increase the annual cost of running his department. And he said that almost all the universities where he'd worked were structured the same way.
