Why do we keep decreasing the government’s share of the costs per university student?

My regular insider ES sent me the following very interesting information from 1985:-

In 1984/85 – the National University of Singapore’s (NUS) tuition fee for the Science Course was only $1,000 or just 6.7 per cent of the average recurrent costs of $14,827 per student.

Does this mean that the government’s share of the average recurrent costs, was 93.3 per cent (100 – 6.7%)?

For Medicine – the tuition fee was only $1,100 against the average recurrent costs of $43,803 – i.e. the government’s share of the average recurrent costs, was 97.5 per cent.

According to NUS’s web site – the tuition fee for normal courses and Medicine will increase to $8,200 and  $28,400 respectively, this year, and the government Recurrent Expenditure on Education per Student for University was $21,853 in 2017.

So, does it mean that the government’s share of the average recurrent costs is now 62.5 per cent ($8,200 divided by $21,853)?

Why has the government’s share of the average recurrent costs decreased from 93.3 per cent in 1984 to 62.5 per cent now?

Against this – the overall Budget surplus was $9.6 and $12 billion for FY2017 and FY2016, respectively.

We also had about $30 and $200 billion of reported Budget surpluses and Cash Budget surpluses, in the last decade or so.

Leong Sze Hian