Kansas is not alone in raising tuition and fees for higher education.

Kansas and Kansas State universities and other institutions of higher learning in the state have come under fire for boosting tuition and fees, but Kansans need to know that schools in every region of America are due this fall to impose their steepest tuition and fee increases in a decade.

Dale Russakoff and Amy Argetsinger of The Washington Post mince no words about the cause. They call the hikes “the latest fallout of state fiscal crises in which most governors and legislatures this year sharply reduced aid to higher education.”

State budgets in most cases have big shortfalls and, rather than raising taxes, legislators are passing those cuts on to all schools, from kindergarten through college.

Tuition and fees for the State University of New York and the University of Oklahoma are rising some 30 percent, along with similar boosts at the University of Virginia. Costs are going up 39 percent at the University of Arizona and 40 percent for the University of California, on all nine campuses.

“The pattern marks a reversal from the boom times of the late 1990s, when state tax collections soared and most governors dramatically raised aid to public colleges and universities, which educates two thirds of the nation’s four-year college students,” say Russakoff and Argetsinger.

“Some states froze or even rolled back in-state tuition; others kept increases to a minimum. Governors and lawmakers in several states said they cut state aid to higher education reluctantly, but did so knowing that colleges and universities could raise money from other sources, including tuition.”

The Washington Post piece continues: “University officials voiced concern that many lower- and moderate-income students now will be pushed into community colleges or out of higher education because federal financial aid and most state aid programs are not keeping pace with rising tuition. Meanwhile, the job market for young adults is dismal and more students need to work to afford college.”

“They’re just balancing budgets, this is the fallout, and nobody is asking, ‘What about our future?'” says Joni E. Finney, vice president of the National Center for Public Policy in Higher Education headquartered in San Jose, Calif.

The terms “poor planning” and “mismanagement” keep coming to mind in states such as Kansas where state budgets once were strong and solid. Shortsighted officials acted as if such a situation would go on forever. They failed to plan ahead, and when things began to tail off, there was great reluctance to increase taxes to meet the challenges. At the same time, tight budgets place even more responsibility on university officials to operate as carefully as possible and eliminate waste and duplication.

It probably is no comfort to Kansas people who face the rising tuition and fees to know that most other states are in the same boat, but perhaps there is less misery to know they are not alone.