"Trends in College Spending, 1999-2009: Where does the money come from? Where does it go? What does it buy?" is the fourth in a series of reports on college and university spending from the Delta Cost Project on Postsecondary Education Costs, Productivity, and Accountability. The mission of the Delta Cost Project is to improve public accountability for spending in higher education through the presentation of measures that put financial information into context, showing how money is spent and how that spending relates to institutional performance. The findings presented in this report concentrate on the 1999 to 2009 academic years; 2009 is the last year for which spending data are available and the first year of the "Great Recession," whose effects are still reverberating through higher education. Readers should be cautioned against viewing 2009 spending levels as emblematic of the fiscal situation facing institutions today. Consequences of this deep recession are only beginning to show up in the data in this report. Although the recession technically was declared over in mid-2009, sustained economic growth has yet to return, and the negative consequences on state budgets in particular won't play out until 2012 or 2013 when the state fiscal troughs will be at their lowest levels, and the federal stimulus funds will have been spent. Additional data details are appended. (Contains 28 figures and 10 footnotes.) [For previous report, "Trends in College Spending 1998-2008: Where Does the Money Come from? Where Does It Go? What Does It Buy? A Report of the Delta Cost Project," see ED539421.]