Last Thursday, thousands of college students across the country protested budget cuts to state university systems. Students took to the streets, letting lawmakers hear their pleas to put money back into the schools.

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The argument many are making is that such cuts to publicly funded institutions drive up tuition, limit classes and make higher education unavailable to many low-income students.

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And there should be protest. Cutting money from higher-education budgets is a completely backwards way of taking care of business during a recession. As much as any student would understand that the cuts must happen somewhere, how could it make sense to anyone, student or not, to essentially take money away from the future: us?

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It is difficult enough as it is for many students to pay for college and demanding that they pay higher is absurd. If anything, students should have to pay less in times of recessions because they are hurting much more than others. It’s difficult to tell a student with a 15-credit hour load who is already working one job to pick up another so he or she can pay for those credits.

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And what if a student in a particular major can no longer take a very important class just because it’s unpopular and was determined worthy of being cut? This student, who is already paying plenty to get the education he or she deserves, can no longer do so.

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What do we say to the brilliant high school senior who had always planned of going to college to study medicine but now cannot do so because the costs are just too high and his family can’t give him the financial help he needs? This could have been the student who made a serious medical breakthrough if given the chance.

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If people plan to proceed to tell young people that college is an absolute necessity, things had better change in terms of funding. Do not tell someone they need food to survive, then refuse to help them attain the nourishment they need.

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Education is terribly important in our country, especially if we, as a nation, hope to remain at the top. Why add obstacles to that?

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We have every right to protest this twisted decision to cut higher education funding. And protest we will.

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The above editorial is the consensus opinion of the Daily Kent Stater editorial board.