Blue Thoughts from a Red State: The High Cost of Higher EducationJesse Zerger Nathanbyline‚ Jul. 05‚ 2006With news of Kansas University’s new-fangled, two-million dollar electron microscope dominating the front pages of the Lawrence Journal-World, it was easy to miss reported rumblings of a proposed increase in tuition at the university’s 17,000-student College of Liberal Arts, tucked neatly away in the paper’s B section. And while the Supreme Court began (once again) considering whether the obstinate Republicans who control the Kansas Congress had made good on last-year’s court-ordered funding increases for K-12 education statewide, all is not well in the world of higher education here—or anywhere else nationally, for that matter—when it comes to the price tag. |