The Kansas Board of Regents was right Wednesday to seek a restoration of the 4 percent cuts in state funding ordered this year.

Regents asked for no other increases in state funding for the state’s public institutions of higher education, including the University of Kansas.

In May, shortly after signing a final budget bill for the fiscal year that began July 1, Gov. Sam Brownback ordered $97 million in cuts to the new budget to make up for revenue shortfalls. Nearly a third of those cuts, $30.7 million, came from the Regents universities, including $7 million from the University of Kansas campus in Lawrence, and $3.7 million from KU Medical Center in Kansas City, Kan.

“Our priority is trying to get that 4 percent back,” Regents Chairwoman Zoe Newton said.

The state of Kansas has struggled mightily with revenue shortfalls and budget woes throughout Brownback’s tenure as governor. The state Legislature has largely tried to fix those problems with cuts in two areas: transportation and higher education. But legislators should keep in mind that cuts to the latter amount to a tax on Kansas families with college-age students.

A recent report by the data journalism website FiveThirtyEight demonstrated that cuts in state funding — not professor salaries, administrative costs, lavish dorms or fancy recreation centers — are overwhelmingly to blame for an alarming increase in tuition at the nation’s public universities and colleges. The report showed that from 2000 to 2014, only three states — energy-rich Wyoming, Alaska and North Dakota — kept state funding for higher education on pace with inflation and enrollment growth. Kansas tuition is up $2,800 per year since 2000, ranking it 36th in tuition increases since 2000. Meanwhile, state funding in Kansas has decreased $2,800 per student in that time. FiveThirtyEight said 98.1 percent of higher education tuition increases in Kansas can be attributed to state funding cuts.

It’s important to note that the FiveThirtyEight report only goes through 2014. The impacts of state funding cuts and tuition increases in 2015-16 haven’t been accounted for.

For the time being, Kansas has one of the more affordable average tuition rates for public post-secondary education in the nation. But that’s not going to last if the Legislature continues to shift financial pressures onto higher education and make it more difficult for working Kansas families to afford college.

The governor and the Legislature should work to restore the 4 percent cuts as the Board of Regents requested. It’s an economic investment in Kansas worth making.