Editorial: Higher tuitions in store?

Monday, Jan. 14, 2002 | 8:36 a.m.

Last week a new study came out that said the costs of higher education were skyrocketing so much that there are only five states where four-year public colleges are affordable for low-income students -- Alaska, Arkansas, Hawaii, Kentucky and Wyoming. The Lumina Foundation for Education found that nearly half of Nevada's private and public colleges are too expensive for low-income students -- the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, the University of Nevada, Reno, and Sierra Nevada College. The only institutions in Nevada that were affordable for low-income students were the community colleges.

With that information in hand, it was interesting that last week Bruce James, the chairman of the board of the private Sierra Nevada College at Lake Tahoe, actually called for a tripling of the tuition at Nevada's public universities. James, who made his remarks during a roundtable discussion on the University and Community College System of Nevada's master plan, noted that Nevada ranked low nationally on tuition rates for public universities. That may be the case, but that begs a more important question: If the tuition already makes it hard for low-income students to attend school, why would you want to make it even more difficult for them to get an education?

Meanwhile, some of the businessmen who were participants in the roundtable discussion said that more emphasis should be placed on catering to the needs of industry. Ray Bacon of the Nevada Manufacturers Association said the university system should be producing graduates who are qualified workers. We want to see better graduates, too, but that costs money -- and it's not just more funding for universities. Students also need to be better prepared by the time they enter college and that requires more funding for K-12 education. It would be a refreshing change to see all the businesses in this state that clamor for better graduates to simultaneously campaign for more funding to pay for education's needs.

One of our nation's crowning achievements has been providing access to higher education, regardless of a student's income. The GI Bill is one of the most notable examples. Over time our colleges and universities eliminated the kind of caste system that existed elsewhere in the world, an advance in education that seeks to give everyone an equal chance to succeed. We should, as a state and as a nation, not turn our back on this progress that we have made.