Our View

By:

Shandra Jordan – Editor in Chief

Colleen Buhrer

Joshua Pilkington

Sen. Ron Teck’s proposal to completely cut off state funding for

higher education may seem dramatic, an overreaction or just plain a

bad idea, but unfortunately he’s just being realistic.

The legislators who deal with funding higher education, prisons,

K-12 education and everything else the state provides in Colorado,

are put in a position of choosing to cut the only thing they can –

higher ed – or … actually, what other options are there?

Teck’s proposal recognizes the very real fact that if the cuts

continue at this rate – every year losing 34 percent of our budget

or maybe more – higher education won’t be state-funded anymore,

regardless of whether a bill passes that says it isn’t.

So eventually, the picture Teck draws will be reality. Maybe we

should just cut the ties right now and sink or survive on our own.

Might as well find out now, instead of slowly wilting away over the

next 10 years, each year offering a poorer and poorer education to

students, and watching as university faculty and staff lose their

jobs or quit to move somewhere where they’ll have job security.

This is not Teck’s fault, nor is it the legislature’s fault. The

governor is not to blame. No university officials can be

implicated. Without the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights, we’d have to

find something else to write about today and Teck would have to

find some other bills to support.

You may disagree with the solutions people are proposing, but

let’s face it the status quo is not going to suffice. Teck could be

proposing this as a solution, or it could simply be a way to draw

voters’ attention to the problem. Regardless, the answer will not

come from doing nothing.