Ten years ago today, I was 10 years old, in the fifth grade and still under the close watch of education initiatives at both the state and federal level.

Ten years later, I am 20 years old, a junior in college and left out to dry with no higher education pushes underway.

What is wrong with this picture?

A Wisconsin fifth-grader today is living the good life. This youngin’ is fortunate enough to have two individuals with a background in teaching closely connected to the helm politically, which thus makes students of today recipients of planning, efforts and publicity.

As citizens of the United States of America and Wisconsin residents, we have Laura Bush and Jessica Doyle as first ladies, who are both former educators. Their respective initiatives as First Lady surround education. Their websites entirely focus on education and they make visits to classrooms in support of education, such as the Wisconsin First Lady’s current learning stint, “Where in Wisconsin is Jessica Doyle?”

These are well-intentioned plans geared in the right direction. However, every plan and education discussion spoken by the Doyles and the Bushes falls short on one level — higher education. Higher education is simply, rarely addressed. I’m sorry President Bush, but tossing a few extra dollars toward Pell Grants is not enough. And Governor Doyle, merely mentioning that the University of Wisconsin System is the best in America during your State of the State address is shallow, unfounded and absurdity at its finest.

The mild irony and extreme hypocrisy surrounding the presence of highly educated and supposedly education-focused individuals in the White House and the Governor’s Mansion deserves explanation. It is too often that education is taken with a grain of salt. For instance, when Teresa Heinz Kerry said, “I don’t know Laura Bush. But she seems to be calm, and she has a sparkle in her eye, which is good. But I don’t know that she’s ever had a real job — I mean since she’s been grown-up,” in October, the nation raised a collective eyebrow. Why did that eyebrow ever fall back into place?

Republicans immediately jumped on the back of the Kerry campaign and Teresa’s hot temper. And yet no one stopped and asked, why doesn’t the nation know that America’s First Lady was a school teacher … an educator? (Why the wife of the Democratic presidential hopeful didn’t know is a completely different story.)

Political parties aside, one thing the majority can agree on is the importance of education. However, the current administration thinks one simple solution of increasing grants and loans is where attention must be placed. Pell Grants are need-based grants given to low-income college students. They are an excellent means of financing a post-secondary education when granted. Unfortunately, universities alone are not being funded properly due to little state support. Doyle, here is where you come into the picture.

When Wisconsin’s governor releases his budget tonight, the UW System will likely take another blow. The hit will likely place higher education beneath funding for corrections systems again and leave students with tuition hikes. We’ve entered into a vicious cycle.

As a nation, we can continue to provide financial aid here and there to aspiring college students but it just is not enough. Both First Ladies are placing immense focus on elementary education and gearing children for the end goal of college. A college education has become the norm, the expected and an ultimate goal for our nation’s students.

But are children being aided immensely as elementary students and being set up ultimately for the end goal of a college education at a poorly-funded and crippling university?

UW has not reached a crippling state. But who is to say that we will remain “the best in America,” as Doyle put it? The times are changing.

Education remains something in the headlines. Doyle will highlight “education, health care and the economy” in his budget address this evening. Bush will continue his two-sentence rhetoric on the importance of education with a Pell Grant reference here and there. But it is time to place that end focus where it matters. Stop taking the easy way out: start drawing attention to college students — those who will soon be out in the work force as the next generation of workers.

One would think that with nearly all higher-ups in politics holding a college degree under their belts, they would place and value the importance of higher education interests at hand.

At least their wives are headed in the right direction.

Cristina Daglas ([email protected]) is a junior majoring in journalism.