Opinion

Ask not what you can do for your school…

The second inaugural is a rarified American political occasion. This morning, President George W. Bush will become only the 16th man in United States history to swear such an oath, and in doing so will join an exclusive club to which the likes of George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt claim membership.

It has been said that the second term of a presidency is when a Commander in Chief turns his attention to foreign affairs. And with Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran and North Korea having all occupied the president’s radar screen for much of his first term, it seems unlikely that Bush will deviate from this tradition. But there is at least one domestic issue to which we strongly hope he will dedicate his attention and the resources of the federal government: higher education.

With an educationally-negligent Jim Doyle governing Wisconsin, the University of Wisconsin System needs help now more than ever before in the modern era. State budget cuts have left UW with a budget that is being balanced on students’ backs. And with recent news from Washington that Pell Grants are facing slashes — to the tune of some $3 million in the UW System alone — the future of quality public education is in serious jeopardy.

When US News & World Report released its annual collegiate rankings last year, not a single public university cracked the top 20. While the blame for such a disturbing statistic may be easily pinned on the respective states to which schools claim residence, the reality is that the trend is national and that makes it high time for the Bush administration and congress to step in. Continued cuts to national financial-aid programs will only worsen the picture, and not everyone can afford the Ivy League educations Bush and Doyle received.

The president’s campaign rhetoric on higher education was largely limited to the role of technical and community colleges. And while we applaud the effort to bolster such job training institutions, the reality remains that an associate’s degree doesn’t hold a candle to a bachelor’s, master’s or doctoral diploma. With the United States reigning as the world’s leading industrial nation, a four-year education for its citizens shouldn’t be relegated to pipe-dream status.

As President Bush makes history today, he will be joined on stage by Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist, who received a degree from Stanford Law School; Vice President Dick Cheney who holds a master’s degree from the University of Wyoming and who did doctoral work at UW; First Lady Laura Bush who holds a master’s degree from the University of Texas; and Lynn Cheney who has a PhD from UW. To find someone who left the classroom with a high school diploma or associate’s degree, the President will probably have to look out into the crowd.

We hope the lesson won’t be lost on him.