State budget cuts force YSU tuition increase

With state budget cuts resulting in a $3 million revenue shortfall, Youngstown State University President David Sweet has no choice but to recommend a tuition and fee increase. After all, if students are to get the classes they need, taught by capable faculty members, in up-to-date facilities, the money has to come from somewhere.
The 8.9 percent increase Sweet is proposing to the university's board of trustees would raise $4.4 million, considerably more than Gov. Bob Taft's budget reduction. But for the university to barely keep up is not an option either. No university can remain stagnant. Whether it's necessary improvements in technology or increased health care costs -- which the entire nation is facing -- YSU must be able to plan for the future.
We would, however, caution those who see projected increases and think entitlement. A slightly larger budget does not and should not mean that dollars are there for the taking.
Public higher education in many states has been taking a beating, but nowhere worse than in Ohio, where the cost of equitably funding K-12 education has not been met by necessary increases in revenue.
Thus the state has not just been robbing Peter to pay Paul, it's been committing grand larceny.
Unrealistic expectations: Ohio's leaders purport to want it all -- a well educated work force, a quality teacher in every classroom, children who can pass the state proficiency tests, hordes of high-tech workers to move the state from a manufacturing economy to a knowledge-based economy -- as long as they don't have to pay for it.
Education doesn't work that way.
You don't get an educated work force when you force college tuitions so high they're unaffordable by many families. You don't get quality teachers when you short-change colleges of education.
Where is the high-tech competence supposed to come from when you make no provision in the budgetary process for increasing costs of technology but then threaten universities with tuition caps when they are forced to raise tuitions to pay those costs?
And why would high-tech companies even consider locating in Ohio when education is such a low priority in the state?
No university president likes to raise tuition, but if students are to continue receiving a quality education, they have little choice.
Dr. Sweet has not only increased the enrollment numbers at YSU, but programs he has instituted are helping more students stay in school as well. We believe he's on the right track in his vision for the university and should be supported in his request for the necessary increase.