Although UVA is the flagship university of Virginia, state funding has decreased for several consecutive decades. Financial support from the state dropped by half from 12 percent of total revenue in 2001–02 to six percent in 2013–14. The portion of academic revenue coming from the state fell by even more in the same period, from 22 percent to just nine percent. This nominal support from the state, contributing just $154million of UVA's $2.6billion budget in 2012–13, has led President Sullivan and others to contemplate the partial privatization of the University of Virginia. UVA's Darden School and Law School are already self-sufficient. Hunter R. Rawlings III, President of the prominent Association of American Universities research group of universities, came to Charlottesville to make a speech to university faculty which included a statement about the proposal: "there's no possibility, as far as I can see, that any state will ever relinquish its ownership and governance of its public universities, much less of its flagship research university". He encouraged university leaders to stop talking about privatization and instead push their state lawmakers to increase funding for higher education and research as a public good.