Last Friday the OSU Board of Trustees voted to raise tuition by another 9 percent. This follows a comparable tuition hike implemented one year ago.

Of course, it would hardly be fair to blame the board or the administration for this. At the end of the day, it is their assigned duty to adjust tuition to compensate for ever-diminishing state funds – and then to dress the bad news in the prettiest clothes possible.

The latter is no easy P.R. job. But they can’t be faulted for not trying. According to Buckeye Net News, the latest tuition hike is “designed to provide the university with the financial flexibility to deal with an uncertain state budget picture, while at the same time trying to minimize the impact on the university’s current students.” Feel any better?

Are we supposed to feel grateful that, under the new three-tier system, current students will be paying slightly less than future students? Should we take comfort in the knowledge that tuition at OSU is still a “bargain” compared to that at private colleges?

A one-time 9 percent tuition hike is distasteful but digestible. It just means digging deeper into the barrel or, for most students, sinking deeper into debt. But if we take a step back, the bigger picture is nothing less than disturbing.

Galloping tuition rates and reductions in state funding of higher education are the reality not only at Ohio State, but at every public university in every state. Last year, the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education released a report on the decreasing affordability of college education. This report pointed out several concurrent trends.

* The cost of a college education is increasing at a much faster rate than both income and inflation. When expressed as a percentage of average family income, for example, college tuition has doubled in the last 20 years for families in middle and lower income ranges

* While, it is true that the federal and state governments have increased their allotments to financial aid programs, these allotments have not even come close to keeping pace with tuition increases

* Student debt is on the rise as well. The report stated that 64 percent of college seniors will be in debt – a figure that has doubled in the last eight years. In a related trend, federal student financial aid has come less in the form of grants and more in the form of loans

* The largest increases in public college tuition are imposed when students and their families can least afford them – during recessions. The report found a striking correlation between economic downturns and tuition hikes at public colleges. This obeys a cruel logic, a souring economy negatively affects state government budgets, which means less state funding for public colleges and translates into larger tuition increases. But the same souring economy also pulls down real wages, leaving students ill-prepared to absorb the punch of a tuition hike

These long-term trends put the latest tuition increase in a sobering context and beg more serious questions. Instead of getting caught up in the yearly budget charade, crossing our fingers in hopes of a minimal tuition hike, we should set our sights higher. Where are our priorities anyway? The problem is not a lack of funds, but a failure to devote them to education.

Even as state funding for health care, education and social services has waned in the last 15 years, state money has been poured into the prison system. And at the federal level, military spending is the elephant in the room that politicians fail to mention as they blather on about which social programs to cut and by how much.

Among the greatest democratic gains of this country’s history is the notion of universal education. Once reserved for the preparation of ministers, lawyers and doctors, schooling is now widely held as the birthright of every individual. It is clear that an education should not stop at the 12th grade for those who wish to continue. But current trends signal a regression to a much less democratic past. How can something priced as a luxury ever be truly available to all?

Paul Coltrin is a future graduate student in Spanish, and is studying through Continuing Education. He can be reached at [email protected].