Glenn Poshard, president of Southern Illinois University and a former U.S. representative, is back on the stump these days, warning that state budget cuts soon may make college unaffordable for about a fourth of all the college students in Illinois.

The cuts in Illinois' Monetary Award Program would affect nearly 138,000 students at public and private colleges and universities as well as those in some online and technical colleges. About half of these students reported annual household income of less than $20,000.

For them, MAP funding makes college possible. Cuts would put it out of reach for many of them.

State lawmakers appropriated just $220 million of the $440 million requested to fund the Illinois Student Assistance Commission, which appropriates the Monetary Award Program — reducing the maximum annual award from $4,968 to less than $2,500.

Unless state lawmakers and Gov. Pat Quinn find a way to bridge the gap during a two-week legislative veto sessions set later this month, MAP will run dry. Students across the state — including between 4,000 and 4,300 at SIU's campuses — will be out of luck after the first of the year.

Illinois' political leaders can't allow that to happen, not to families already financially stressed, not when unemployment rates for young adults are the highest in more than 60 years. Failure is not an option — particularly given the legislators' own college perk program described below in the guest editorial from The Chicago Tribune.

There are no easy answers or solutions to the college affordability issue. Costs are rising faster than students — and the state — can afford. The colleges themselves bear some responsibility for that.

Large social trends may be at work, too. Robert Archibald and David Feldman, economists from the College of William and Mary, say that steep and steadily rising costs are not unique to higher education but may be an example of William Baumol and William Bowen's cost disease theory. "Cost disease" occurs when industries become more efficient, generally a function of knowledge and technology. Compensation paid to the most highly trained and educated workers grows fastest. But the rising tide also lifts the pay of workers in sectors of the economy that have not become more efficient.

Gains in Silicon Valley's productivity, for example, improve the economic prospects of engineers everywhere — including at universities, where they teach 30 or fewer students per course.

Colleges and universities, and ultimately parents, students and taxpayers, pick up the tab for "cost disease." The symptoms are magnified by the stagnant wages of working families and the fickleness of government funding — as exemplified by the Illinois MAP crisis.

Further compounding the problem is competition from for-profit technical and online schools that have lower fixed costs and make no broad commitment to the community.

Full-service colleges and universities make a valuable contribution. With some sustained hustle, they can solve their problems.

But they must simplify opaque financial aid systems. They must coordinate across institutional lines to place more students in college. They must become more efficient where possible without compromising quality — such as by combining operations with community colleges, offering a broad range of online courses and passing savings on to students.

Faculties must become much more flexible and productive in putting student access first. A sustained future for a vibrant higher education system that serves many people depends on these things. MAP grants included.