Paper's criticism of YSU response to budget pressures offers a Menckenesque solution

EDITOR:
"There is an easy solution to every human problem: Neat, plausible, and wrong." These wise words, attributed to the late journalist H. L. Mencken, seem relevant to The Vindicator's recent commentaries on Youngstown State University's tuition increases. Action by YSU's trustees to prohibit such increases would certainly be a neat solution, and it sounds plausible, and it might succeed for a year or two, but in the long run it would be wrong.
Before defending this assertion, let us reaffirm the immense value of low-cost public higher education to our nation. Beyond its benefits to individual students, we all win when talented people from all segments of our society have the opportunity to develop their talents fully. There is, however, no free lunch. The money needed to run our universities must come from somewhere. It is well known that state support has been dwindling. Grants and private donations help, and need to be encouraged, but tuition payments must fill the gap.
The increases in tuition costs in recent years have been driven by multiple forces, including pay increases and healthcare costs for university employees, increasing energy costs and above all by dwindling State support. Let's look at each of these in turn.
The Vindicator saw the most recent round of wage increases for unionized YSU employees as excessive and "irresponsible." Should the trustees have vetoed the new contracts? Maybe, maybe not -- they were faced with a need to balance many considerations: preventing disruptive strikes and their associated bitterness and demoralization, as well as the impact on students' lives if the campus had been shut down. Keeping good employees is also a major consideration. If you ask your staff to forgo salary increments one year, they probably will go along. If you do it year after year, your best people will start voting with their feet, possibly with disastrous effect on the institution's quality.
Healthcare cost increases are a major concern for all employers and an unsolved problem for our nation. The Vindicator rightly notes that the co-pays instituted at YSU this year are "minuscule," but at least they established the principle. The primary value of co-pays is encouraging employees and their families to stop thinking of paid medical care as a free lunch with no economic consequences. Patients and doctors both need to be more prudent in making decisions about medical spending, and co-pays are a useful way to encourage them to think about this issue.
The Vindicator acknowledged that, "the university is anticipating a 20 percent increase in its energy costs" this year but didn't say how this expense should be covered. It's nice to say that it shouldn't be added to tuition bills, but what viable alternative is there?
Finally, there is the problem of decreasing support for public education (at all levels) from the state of Ohio. Year after year, the Legislature has consistently failed to address this crisis effectively, and there is little hope for improvement in the foreseeable future.
The Vindicator says, "Where does the administration intend to find the money to pay the additional cost it has assumed for the next three years? We don't know, but we do know this: Not one penny should come from the pockets of the students or their parents." That, in my view, is neat, plausible and wrong.
ROBERT D. GILLETTE
Poland