Mississippi’s state budget woes will soon make getting a university education more difficult.

After having to juggle several midyear budget cuts recently, the state’s eight public universities raised tuition Thursday by an average of 6.6 percent, beginning next fall.

On average costs will increase $463 for two semesters of full-time tuition and fees.

Universities will begin the 2018 budget year with approximately 12 percent less allocated to them than they actually spent in 2016.

We have long believed that the key to Mississippi’s future is not through constantly reducing public spending, but in a common, focused determination to make education something in the reach of every state citizen.

In short, the costs of education should be going down, not going up.

Decades ago, one could argue, higher education was not as critical perhaps to the livelihoods of Mississippians.

Someone with a good work ethic could easily obtain work in a factory or on a farm and make a good living, even without the ability to read, write or even sign one’s own name.

That is no longer the case.

Even trade jobs require computer and communication skills.

For Mississippians to collectively pull the state up from one of the most impoverished states in the union to become of the country’s leaders, education must be a priority for all.