Forgo buying Christmas presents now, if you’re planning on coming back to Iowa State next year: Wednesday evening, the Iowa Board of Regents approved a 4.2 percent increase in tuition at the state’s three public universities for resident undergraduates.

The board voted 6-2 in favor of the increase, with regents Ruth Harkin and Michael Gartner opposing it. This comes on the heels of last year’s lowest tuition percentage raise in over two decades — so much for that silver lining.

It’s no secret that the economy sucks. Rainy-day funds aren’t stashed in the Campanile’s bells, and we doubt that faculty, staff and creditors are going to suddenly stop wanting paid. Not only does the university have to make ends meet, but Iowa Gov. Chet Culver has asked the regents to cut $7 million from the state universities’ budgets this year, some of which inevitably has to be passed on to Ames.

Belts are going to have to be tightened no matter what. But to shore up this decrease, can’t the frills of a university education — that which isn’t imperative to our education — wait for another year?

In an editorial earlier this week, we cited a National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education report that found that across the country, tuition and fees have increased 439 percent since 1982, while average family income has only risen 147 percent.

That disparity wasn’t a one-shot deal. It’s the years like this, when times are tough, when wages are stagnant, where families — and students going it on their own — can’t keep up with the increases.

It’s nice that the regents have said in interviews that they recognize the difficult times and the struggles families undertake to pay for college. At this rate, though — and like the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education report found — college will soon be too expensive to be a reality for too many families. At what point are the regents going to stop sympathizing with college students and their families and start taking the actions that they have the power to do?

Or, put another way: We, too, sympathize with the regents’ tough decision to find ways to fund the state universities. There isn’t an answer that will please everyone. But the tuition raise is the easy way out, and it will shut the universities’ gates for students who aren’t sure if they can afford it.