The cost of higher education is still a relative bargain in Utah. Public colleges in the West are less expensive than elsewhere, and Utah is near the median among Western states. Nevertheless, the annual tuition hikes hit hard at students who are working to pay their own way. In Utah, where people marry, on average, five years earlier than the rest of the nation, many students also work to support a family.

The tuition increases at Utah's nine public institutions will be less than expected for the 2005-2006 school year because revenue surpluses allowed the state Legislature to be a bit more generous. Still, Utah ranks in the bottom quarter of states in funding for higher education, and the state's share dropped by $930 per full-time student from 1999 to 2004. Each year, the state shifts a bigger burden to students.

The average tuition increase for next year is 8.3 percent. Utah State University and Weber State University come in highest with 9.8 percent hikes for tuition alone.

Less, however, is said about how much more students will be paying next year in student fees, those mandatory "extras" tacked onto a student's bill for such things as athletic tickets, computer labs, libraries, a student newspaper and government, health services and recreation - and, in recent years, building upkeep.

The percentage increases for fees were as high, on average, as for tuition, and, at Southern Utah University, Weber State University and Snow College, were much higher at 12.45 percent, 11.24 percent and 20 percent, respectively.

For those institutions, "buildings" and "fuel and power" take a big chunk of fee increases. That is a change from years past, when it was understood that the state would pay for infrastructure, and students would foot the bill for such things as teacher pay and programs.

Most students may not care whether the ever-larger check they write each semester goes toward tuition or fees. Students on tuition scholarships, however, care a great deal that fees continue to climb, and that the money is being used to pay for things that traditionally have been the state's responsibility.

Whether the increases come in tuition or fees, the state can shift only so many costs to Utah students before higher education is priced out of their reach. And that would be to our shame.