Show us the money.

This week Sen. Gary Nodler (R-Joplin) and the Senate Interim Committee of the Cost of a College Education came to the conclusion that the state needs to allocate more money to colleges and universities to bring tuition under control.

That’s refreshing to hear, but we will believe it when our bank accounts contain more pictures of presidents and fewer tumbleweeds.

Students at Missouri Southern attend one of the least-expensive Universities in the state and we are grateful. But many of us are still up to our armpits, sans costly deodorant, in debt. Add tuition to books to fees to gas to housing and our wallets empty faster than the bills can be paid. Few of us even receive refunds from scholarships, and those are the lucky ones.

The National Report Card on Higher education gave Missouri an F for affordability. According to the report, persons in the lower middle income category (average income of $29,298) need to allocate 34 percent of their income to pay the net cost of an education at public four-year colleges and universities.

Ouch.

Nodler also announced a piece of legislation to “address the issues facing Missouri’s system of higher education.”

How? Where is this magic funding coming from? Taxes, interest on taxes, an increase in taxes on interest? It’s six of one, half a dozen of the other. Either way somebody pays.

If our government wants a study on the cost of higher education, they need only spend one day with college students. We are spending money as you read this.

If our government has established a plan to truly make higher education more affordable, more power to them. Surely, all the students who gave up college to pursue careers at Arby’s because they could not afford the low tuition at Southern will appreciate Nodler’s effort. We appreciate his effort.

Now the next step is telling us how it will happen. There are a few more hurdles to clear and political battles yet to fight.