There’s been a lot of debate at Iowa State over the past week about the proposed cuts to the Regent colleges. Although we may be students here for a few years, we’ll be a citizen of this country forever. 

To quote President Obama, “Everybody’s going to have to give. Everybody’s going to have to have some skin in the game.”

Our students and professors are thinkers, innovators and problem solvers who are not only capable, but should call it upon themselves as their duty to spearhead this movement to fiscal responsibility. K-12 schools and even community colleges may not have the resources to get through hard economic times without some help, and a solid foundation in K-12 is a very important prerequisite for effective secondary education.

In a time when everyone is being told to “have some skin in the game” throughout the education community, the Regents have the most skin.

We may by hungry, but we still have some weight to lose. I support the Go Green Initiative, but is it really the right time to be taking on a $12 million expense toward hybrid buses or buying solar powered garbage cans that cost $5,000 a piece?

Maybe it’ll pay for itself someday, but long-term investments aren’t short-term solutions. During a time when money’s tight, families don’t go out and remodel their home with state-of-the-art eco-friendly products with the argument that it’ll pay for itself in 15 years. They turn down the thermostat 2 degrees, don’t go out for dinner as much, and start tracking their expenses to see where else they’ve been wasteful.

For now, we need to treat our universities the same.