Accessible, affordable higher education is fundamental to improving Maine’s economy and quality of life. It offers individuals the most promising opportunity to improve themselves financially and to ensure self-sufficiency. Furthermore, higher education has demonstrated a payback far greater than its investment, as measured by job creation, work force development and business attraction.

Maine’s institutions of higher education are facing tremendous challenges. Enrollment has been rapidly escalating while state funding has failed to keep pace. For instance, the Community College System recently reported a 42 percent increase in enrollment in the last three years, but noted that the state appropriation had only increased by 5.7 percent during that time. Similarly, the university system’s per pupil allocation from the state has declined by 37 per-cent in the last 15 years, even as it has continued to expand across the state.

These years of underfunding higher education in Maine have hurt our state and the prospect of escalating costs of energy and health care only promises to compound the problem. This cycle is disruptive to those who teach and staff the institutions, discouraging to the students served by them, and demoralizing to the communities that host them. Steep tuition increases and dramatic reductions in programs loom on the horizon if the Legislature fails to act.

As members of the Legislature’s Committee on Appropriations and Financial Affairs, we believe that Maine can no longer allow higher education to founder. It’s time for policymakers to unite behind a true investment plan for higher education.

In the short term, the university system faces a shortfall of $15 million this year while the Community College System faces a shortfall of $2 million. Last month, the Legislature approved $3.25 million for the university system and $1.5 million for the Community College System in emergency funding.

While we do not have the resources to fully fund the outstanding shortfall, we must invest our remaining resources to help ameliorate the need for double-digit tuition increases and deep cuts to programs at each of the systems.

In the longer term, key needs must be addressed in student financial aid, high-demand programs like nursing and teacher education, and attraction and retention of quality faculty and students through recruitment assistance, compensation and student stipends. Additionally, a comprehensive capital plan must be approved and funded. Both systems have provided the Legislature with thorough briefings on the needs of their institutions, and bond proposals should be developed for the next legislative session for voter approval in June 2007.

Though the current legislative session is nearing an end, we still have the time and the resources to make a real difference for Maine. In our final days, we must come together, across party lines and above our ideological divisions, to invest in the fundamental building block for our state’s economy and quality of life – higher education.

John Martin is a state senator from Aroostook County and Jeremy Fischer is a state representative from Presque Isle. Both are Democratic members of the Legislature’s Committee on Appropriations and Financial Affairs.