Star-Tribune Editorial Board

Some great ideas begin as simple concepts. Here's one of them:

"The ability to make higher education affordable for all Wyoming citizens is within our reach, and, simply, we should do it."

University of Wyoming President Tom Buchanan conveyed the above message Thursday at his convocation speech to faculty, staff and trustees. It's a logical extension of the mandate in Wyoming's Constitution to keep higher education as nearly free as possible.

He made an excellent point. The Hathaway Scholarship Program has provided financial help so many high school graduates can attend the University of Wyoming and the state's seven community colleges.

In fact, even though the number of high school graduates declined from 7,000 in 1999 to 5,700 this year, more freshmen are at UW this fall than eight years ago. Buchanan credited the Hathaway program for the unlikely statistic.

Students who earn Hathaway scholarships attend college full-time and can obtain several hundred dollars per semester, based on college aptitude test scores and their high school performance.

For some time, college has not been designed just for students right out of high school. Now, 40 percent of those enrolled at UW are "nontraditional" students. They're either older or taking classes part-time. For the state's community colleges, the figure is 43 percent.

One of Wyoming's biggest needs is to train skilled workers to help alleviate the labor shortage in this sparsely populated state. That includes 17- and 18-year-olds who want to take advantage of high wages in the energy sector. But it also includes older workers who want to train for new employment opportunities.

A program like Hathaway has tremendous potential to make higher education a reality for older students who otherwise might not be able to afford to attend college.

On Friday, Gov. Dave Freudenthal cautioned that expanding the Hathaway program as soon as Buchanan suggests might be a mistake. He said questions remain about how the current levels of Hathaway funding will affect state budgets over the long term. That's a legitimate concern.

The governor also pointedly noted that Buchanan didn't volunteer to forgo any of his other budget requests to fund a scholarship program for nontraditional students. Buchanan, however, shouldn't have to do so.

The Legislature created the Hathaway program because it saw a clear benefit in offering scholarships, using money made possible by the boom in mineral revenues. It didn't ask UW or the community colleges to sacrifice any of the other programs they offered. The Hathaways are for the benefit of the students, not the colleges.

Freudenthal's fears aside, the Legislature should give serious consideration to Buchanan's idea. That includes developing a steady revenue source to help nontraditional students, as well as the practical aspects of how such financial aid would work.

The governor may indeed be correct in his assertion that Buchanan's good idea might be a few years ahead of its time. But it's worth putting it on the table now, if only to inspire legislators, UW and community college officials to think about the details.