The size and cost of US public higher education, funded largely by government, grew continuously for nearly twenty-five years after World War II. In the late 1960s, as the nation's economic growth slowed, the question of who should pay for higher education came under fresh political scrutiny. Decades-old no-tuition policies at the University of California and The City University of New York (CUNY) became targets of neoconservative critiques of the proper role of government support for public services. In California, this was done as Governor Ronald Reagan promoted a partisan austerity to win favor with business and other conservative elites. He justified cuts to higher education financing as a rebuke of protesting students and inept administrators and, later, as financially necessary given voters' reluctance to pay more taxes. In contrast, federal and New York State politicians forced austerity on city leaders to satisfy bond holders during New York City's severe fiscal crisis. Reformers argued that CUNY's no-tuition policy was emblematic of the city's overindulgence of its residents. No-tuition policies became impossible to defend in the context of the stalled economy and growing conservative movement, whose members embraced government austerity.