Responding to the news that the University of Rhode Island, which has long been underfunded, now enrolls more out-of-state students than in-state students, RIPEC President and CEO Michael DiBiase told the Boston Globe that the Ocean State needs to prioritize greater investments to higher education. “Rhode Island’s higher education expenditures are over 30 percent below the U.S. average [and so] a 30 percent increase in funding for URI is not unreasonable as an objective,” he said, but “it would be . . . prudent to have a plan for an increased level of investment over a period of years.”