ISU Bengal

Issue date: 4/16/08 Section: News

Editors note: This section of the Bengal presents the views of the editorial staff of the ISU Bengal newspaper. It is not meant to express the views of ISU, its students, or its administration. It is, however, intended to stimulate discussion on important topics facing the student body and the University as a whole. Comments and responses are encouraged and will be printed in the Letters to the Editor section of the newspaper.



Federal and state funding for higher education, which allows easier access for students from lower and middle-income families, has always been a hot-button issue for many people, especially potential and current students and those who support them.

Inherently, by providing for greater social justice and an overall benefit for society by offering education to those least able to afford it, Federal, state and local funding of higher education have been treated as something of a social necessity for at least half a century. Indeed, tampering with such funding in any way other than increases has traditionally been a political third-rail, similar to tampering with Social Security.

Politicians from both parties seemed for a long time to be forced to advocate for maintaining or increasing such funding, with the kind of empty automation reminiscent of speeches by Al Gore or Tom Daschle (it is my firm belief that they are both robots).

This devotion-however hollow and token it may have been coming from the mouths of ambitious but ultimately disinterested politicians-has seemed to wane over the past decade. The cost of a college education has risen almost as fast as gas prices without a concomitant rise in state and federal funding to compensate.

In addition, public support of ventures related to higher education has also seemed to fade. This can be seen locally by the ignorant refusal of Pocatello and Chubbuck citizens to fund much-needed renovations to one of the major economic engines in the area, Holt Arena. Indeed, the passionate commitment of local citizens to forbid further increases in this area's already astronomical property taxes seems ridiculously misguided as both a selfish and stingy refusal to aid an institution that has defined it for over a century, and an economically detrimental and backwards assignment of financial priorities.

Furthermore, by refusing to fund a structure that benefits all inhabitants of the Gate City area, the burden has been laid squarely at the feet of those able to fund its students. The State Board of Education exhibited a similar refusal to fund many needed by improvements for higher education to flourish. This is seen in the now almost $1,000 increase in student fees at ISU over a 5 year period, and the Federal government cutting funding to Pell Grants and other Federal aid and loans, higher education seems to be under attack from every level of government.

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