These days it's cool to be ethnic and to be different but when I was a kid it was not cool - at all. My friends would come over and my mom would make crepes with eggs stuffed with mozzarella cheese tomatoes and spinach. And they'd be like 'What is this?'
State governments generate less revenue in a recession. As state leaders struggle to make up for lost revenue legislatures tend to cut funding for higher education. Colleges in turn answer these funding cuts with tuition hikes.