Nearly-efficient tuitions and subsidies in American public higher education

A two-stage setting for determining subsidies and tuitions in a public university context is developed where fixed costs introduce an efficiency-enhancing role for taxpayer-financed appropriations. The optimal subsidy per enrollment is shown to be proportional to students' maximum net willingness to pay. This result extends a well-known result associated with Ramsey pricing to include endogenous appropriations to public higher education. Realistic restrictions are imposed on the subsidy structure, and scenarios for determining tuitions are addressed and illustrated numerically, using budget data for the University of Iowa and the University of Michigan.