Once again people just love to talk about the various problems within that magical realm of education, but when it comes to making the big decision, they all back away.

The saddest thing about saying something like that is that you could have said it at almost any time during the last few years and it would have been accurate.

This week was the same story. NIU has squeezed the last breath out of its budget for Fiscal Year 1991, with much of the money already going to campus improvements and emergency needs.

However, the long-time problem of funding for handicapped accessibility improvements again went unaddressed. There was simply no room left in the budget for this $645,000 problem because of other emergency needs like dilapidated roofs.

NIU’s option: Turn to the Illinois Board of Higher Education and request emergency funding. IBHE’s answer: No way.

Everyone on the homefront has realized that handicapped accessibility is a big problem on this campus. It is a problem that has existed year after year. There have been and there are students on this campus who cannot attend some classes or cannot even make it to the department of their major because the rooms or buildings are not accessible to them.

It seems as though the fact that there are not tremendous volumes of handicapped students on this campus means to some that the problem can wait or be ignored. Well, it’s about time this problem saw the light of day.