With college tuition continuing to rise, a strategy being pursued by Missouri officials might be worth a look in Kansas and elsewhere.

Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon announced this week that the leaders of the state’s four-year public universities had agreed to freeze tuition for the 2010-11 school year in exchange for the governor’s pledge to minimize education budget cuts. A similar agreement was negotiated by Oklahoma officials for the current school year.

The Missouri deal still must be approved by legislators and the governing boards of the colleges and universities, which is where Kansas officials might run into trouble. Even if Gov. Mark Parkinson made a similar pledge to curb cuts in exchange for a tuition freeze, history suggests that Kansas legislators would be unwilling to follow suit.

In fact, the Kansas Board of Regents tried to barter a similar trade late in the last legislative session but were rebuffed by lawmakers. After legislators sliced deeper into their budget, the regents went ahead and approved higher tuition increases.

Following the example of Oklahoma and Missouri could produce extremely good news for Kansas students, but it only works if both sides — regents AND legislators — are willing to play along.