It’s been about three months since Gov. Culver announced that the state of Iowa would receive a 10 percent across-the-board budget cut. This resulted in $24.5 million slashed from Iowa State’s budget for the current fiscal year.

Since then, we’ve heard talk of countless methods of budget slashingincluding a 6 percent tuition increase for next year. Temporary layoffs and furloughs are a reality for faculty and staff, along with a temporary reduction in TIAA-CREF [Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association – College Retirement Equities Fund] contributions. Colleges are searching for ways to cut their budgets in ways still unknown to us.

And of course, the $100 tuition surcharge has reared its ugly head this semester.

You might be wondering, throughout this endless downpour of bad news, what President Gregory Geoffroy, has to say. We were curious too, so we found out.

During the last week of winter break, a few members of the editorial board had the opportunity to sit down with President Geoffroy. He went over charts, graphs and data with us and took time to answer our questions. Almost immediately a few things became apparent.

Things are indeed grim. State funding has declined so drastically that tuition now accounts for more than half of the university’s revenue.

President Geoffroy put it well when he told us, “Now the bottom has just fallen out,” adding that the university is “fully anticipating” another cut during the legislative session that began Monday.

While state funding relies heavily on the economic climate, it seems that in its response to this budget crunch, the legislature is giving higher education the short end of the stick.

While students are left to scrape together enough tuition money to cover what the state no longer allocates to education, ISU colleges and departments are scrambling to absorb the almost certain additional cuts for fiscal year 2010.

Geoffroy assured us that cuts to colleges and units will be differential. That means some units will be cut more deeply than others — but it will be proportional. Differential reductions will also be made among some non-academic units such as student services and athletics.

He’s also encouraging departments to avoid cuts across the board, and instead “make deep, vertical cuts.”

Geoffroy explained that by shaving everyone’s budget equally, “you deteriorate into total mediocrity.” The vertical cuts will mean some total eliminations, but are designed to preserve quality.

The concept of program eliminations is frightening. The fact that it will be done in the name of quality preservation is only a small consolation. But we can cling to a glimmer of hope in the university’s “ethical, moral commitment to make sure students don’t get the rug pulled out from under them” — especially when it feels like the state has no such commitment.

And in times like these, sometimes those small glimmers are the best we’ve got.