A college education is no longer optional for most jobs paying a middle-income wage.

It is cause for alarm, then, that a bachelor's degree is moving out of reach for some of Utah's young people because tuition at the state's colleges and universities continues to climb as the state pays an ever-smaller percentage of the price tag for higher education. An additional reduction in federal financial aid means a double whammy for many students.

Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr.'s efforts to attract businesses that offer high-paying jobs won't help those who cannot afford the degree those jobs require.

The Utah Board of Regents last week approved an average tuition increase of 9.3 percent for students at the state's nine institutions of higher education, even as state appropriations dropped further, declining 18 percent in the past seven years. The Legislature granted an increase in overall higher-education spending of just 5.7 percent this year, with much of that going long-overdue faculty and staff salary increases.

The ever-increasing cost of such things as lights, heat and building repairs has shifted to the individual institutions, which must pass them along to students, who, in Utah, are often working to pay for school and to support families. At the University of Utah, the current tuition hike will mean a budget-busting increase of $367 for a full load of classes for the 2006-07 academic year. The numbers are similar at other universities.

The increase is highest for Dixie College students, who will pay 25.6 percent more. The two-year college in St. George has added a number of four-year degree programs and thus needs to hire 39 full-time faculty.

That leads to a broader question of how many four-year colleges Utah needs and can afford. If the regents see a need for Dixie to expand, the next logical step would be to reduce the programs at other institutions, perhaps at Southern Utah University, a 45-minute drive north in Cedar City.

The Legislature and regents should look beyond the political urgency of giving every community of any size a four-year college of its own and fund a cost-effective education plan for the entire state. Because it's certain that students can shoulder only so much of the burden.