Surprised. It’s the least I could call myself over the past few months, after watching paper after paper and article after article berate Gov. Jay Nixon over the higher education budget cuts.

How did the guy who fought to freeze tuition for Missouri students during the economic downturn for two years get blamed for this? Isn’t he on the students’ side?

Don’t get me wrong, as a student at Mizzou, and having participated in the “More for Less” campaign in the spring, I understand the frustration. College costs a lot as it is, and I’d rather not see it become more expensive. But could we have a case of “throwing the baby out with the bathwater” on our hands?

For starters, most people, especially those of us taking out student loans, understand that the cost of college has steadily increased over the past several years. More specifically, according to CNN Money, it has increased 8.3 percent nationwide over the past year alone. What about for those of us in the UM System? A mere 3 percent, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, one the lowest increases in the nation, thanks in part to the tuition freezes.

Not to mention that he just signed a “reverse transfer” bill aimed at creating more transferable courses in Missouri’s community colleges and universities. Sure, that may not affect you and I at Mizzou very much, but combine that bill with his expansion of the A+ program to over 65,000 high school students and you have huge steps forward for higher education.

It’s things like this that prompted former Missouri State University President James E. Cofer Sr. to say, “I have been struck by how committed Gov. Nixon is to education, and higher education in particular. He understands that the state’s future depends in great part on the strength of our education system.”

So what happened? 

A huge recession led to lower state revenues and a poor showing by the lottery, whose proceeds go to public education. Like the rest of the world, Missouri has had to cut back on its spending. Unlike the rest of the world, Gov. Nixon has managed to keep Missouri’s AAA credit rating in the process. Nevertheless, he had to make the necessary decisions of what programs to cut funding for.

Part of the problem, and this pertains more to those of us in college, is that we tend to think only higher education, or even Mizzou alone, had its budget cut. When the truth is that spending on many social services has been cut back by tens of millions as well. We aren’t alone in feeling the pain from the tightening of Missouri’s fiscal belt, though sometimes we think we are.

It’s hard to consider ourselves lucky while paying tens of thousands for school. But in a time where colleges across the nation are seeing double-digit spikes in their tuition, we are seeing only a few bumps. This doesn’t mean we should stop fighting for more affordable education, but if we look at the big picture Gov. Nixon has been doing just that. So, come November, let’s not throw the baby out with the bathwater.

Bo Mahr