NIU Student Regent Nick Valadez asked the Facilities and Finance Committee of the Board of Regents Wednesday to take a stand and “hold the line” on tuition for next year, or at least not to raise it beyond an adjustment for inflation.

Earlier this week, Regents’ Chancellor Roderick Groves said he thought “the board members will feel it is unwise to take a position at this time.” He proved to be right. One has to wonder when the board members will ever feel it is a good time to take a position.

A perennial complaint about the board is that the members are reluctant to stir even the slightest controversy in their attempts to get financial support for the Regency system. Cynical folks think the Regents are protecting their own appointments to the detriment of the universities they govern.

To their credit, last semester the Regents approved a resolution presented by Valadez and the other student Regents objecting to the legislature’s education budget cuts. The language was not as strong as it might have been, had the student Regents had a freer hand—or a vote—but some board members seemed to think they were being quite daring in adopting the resolution.

The Regents apparently think it’s not a good idea to be too truthful about the incompetency of the legislators in Springfield—they might, after all, be offended. Well, the legislators could very well take offense. But that doesn’t change the fact of their fiscal irresponsibility. Let them be offended. Maybe they’ll start doing a better job.

NIU President LaTourette has said that any gains from tuition increases will likely be lost due to the money being directed into other uses, such as the state’s faculty retirement system. There seems no point or benefit, then, in raising tuition.

Tuition increases should be used to pay for direct costs of operating the university, such as faculty salaries. If the state doesn’t have enough money to meet its obligations to the retirement system, then the legislators need to raise taxes, just as they would do if there wasn’t enough money to pay for their own pension plan.

This is an election year. Legislators are afraid to take a stand for what they know is essential in order to save the quality of education in Illinois, and pass a tax increase. They will, in all likelihood, protect their jobs to the detriment of the people they govern.

Cynical folks would say that at least the Regents keep good company.