John Koenig

Anyone who really knows me understands my inclination toward political deliberation. Class, work, home, Water Street – all have served as the venue for a variety of political discussions, debates and sometimes outright arguments, if I’m not careful.

That being said, while I’m no authority on the UW-Eau Claire political spectrum, I feel like I’ve collected a relatively comprehensive sample of the diverse views our campus community has to offer.

There are the people who ascribe fairly closely to a political party platform (whether they’re Republican, Democrat or other) the progressives, the extreme conservatives, people who dabble in all areas of the political spectrum and even people who feel their views transcend it.

And then there are the people who just don’t care. Some people on campus are simply adhering to the political climate they grew up in, while others are rejecting that climate and forging their own path.

But there is one issue that all of us, as students and aspiring responsible citizens, should agree upon, regardless of our political views, or even lack thereof: the importance of adequate funding for higher education. Unfortunately, to our elected officials, higher education is often another marginal item on a list of potential cutbacks, making it perfect fodder for partisan bickering.

For example, President Bush recently signed a bill that effectively cut more than $12 billion in student loan funding from the federal budget. Reading through news reports and press releases, it’s obvious the debate over the cut took typical form. Republicans, whose legislative clout pushed the measure through, refused to call it a cut, insisting it was part of a larger effort to curb out-of-control spending and balance the budget.

Democrats, meanwhile, said the cut would simply fund tax cuts for the rich.

To be fair, the Republican argument that reckless, big-government spending is out of control is valid. At the same time, Democrats’ efforts to halt the cuts and support higher education are admirable. But the fact that cutting funding for student loans was even an option is telling.

Even on the state level, under Gov. Jim Doyle, a Democrat, funding for higher education took a hit in the 2005-2007 biennium to remedy budget hardship, leading to an increase in tuition.

What’s more, it’s sometimes a little disturbing to interview legislators (generally, but not always, Republicans) who have taken an adversarial stance toward the System and the Board of Regents and stand to further damage higher education with their squabbling.

We are already facing tuition increases as a result of inadequate funding on the state and federal level, and any sort of decreases can only do more harm, excluding more of our future citizenry from receiving a college education.

Part of the problem is educational funding already constitutes such a minute portion of government budgets that it seems inconsequential compared to concerns like national security, the economy, social security and other big-ticket issues.

But regardless of party affiliation or budget situations, education should not be another chess piece in the game of partisanship. It should be a social necessity that both parties see as beneficial to their goals of our nation.

In the long run, widely affordable higher education provides the means to address virtually every issue facing our nation – therefore transcending partisanship and all the issues that generally fuel political debate. And as members of the Eau Claire academic community, all of us should strive to make this message clear to politicians, no matter what our other political beliefs happen to be.

If you plan to vote in this year’s mid-terms, Wisconsin’s gubernatorial race or any other election, at least make educational funding part of your decision criteria. When a politician expresses concern about student interests, consider their record on educational funding. Numbers always provide a clear distinction between empty rhetoric and genuine concern.

After all, if it weren’t for public higher education, you wouldn’t be learning the skills and principles necessary to succeed in your field, gaining the perspective necessary to be an informed citizen or, worst of all, reading my column. Think about that one.

Brian Reisinger is a junior print journalism major and editorial editor of The Spectator. Reising Issues is a weekly column that appears every Thursday.