Students and their parents are scared. Citizens of Washington state spend billions on property and sales taxes for services and security rendered by the state. That money increasingly has gone to waste, and to maintain a balanced budget, cuts are in order.

Gov. Chris Gregoire plans to take it out on higher education.

Unfortunately, the student body is too disorganized to effectively fight the governor. Last week, students hastily staged a protest against education cuts. Rather than trying to find common ground, ASWSU called out the protesters for skipping class.

It should be noted that the school-sponsored Coug Day at the Capitol has students missing an entire day of classes. Missing a single class for a small lobbying effort should be understandable.

Despite the mutual outrage surrounding this issue, people of dissimilar political leanings are unwilling to reconcile their differences. Attributing these protests to collegiate liberal whining, conservatives throughout the state are very unhappy that students want higher taxes to fund education.

At the same time, Democrats balk at blaming Gregoire for budgetary woes rather than the Bush administration or another left-wing foil.

The issue at hand is neither a tax issue nor a revenue issue caused by the recession. Higher education funding was greater in 2005, while the overall budget was much lower than it was in 2009. Gregoire increased overall spending while cutting education in favor of other sectors of government, including the pork section known as special appropriations.

While conservatives oppose higher taxes, education funding does not necessarily have to come from those sources. There are other methods to fund scholarships and pay professors.

Furthermore, WSU is awash with money in the capital budget. Even with the closure of Troy Hall, the university is planning on new construction. The state government should consider moving funds from the capital budget to the operating budget. This tactic would be tax and revenue neutral and would help with retaining professors and keeping student costs down.

However, these ideas and the pleas of protesters of all political backgrounds ultimately fall on deaf ears. Gregoire decided that students do not need to be placated. She cut education by more than any other department in government while increasing the budget, expecting students to be a non-factor in the next election. After all, WSU is ranked in the top 20 colleges for its politically apathetic students, according to The Princeton Review.

There is only one thing that will invoke government change, and that is fear of re-election defeat. It is a state government controlled by Democrats that exacted these budget cuts. Democrats usually promise to fund education and social programs. However, this group of elected officials seems to do neither.

And it leaves many students who normally vote Democrat in a conundrum. Those who supported Gregoire believe higher taxes are the answer to education cuts. This path loses half of the state. Many liberals in college and conservatives across the state would be perfectly happy going back to 2005 spending levels. That would mean more money for education.

Even if unwilling to support the other party, students should endorse fiscally intelligent Democrats in upcoming primaries. If enough incumbents are challenged, the survivors will heed the warnings of the collegiate lobby and think twice when drafting the next budget.

Until students, their parents and the citizens of Washington state are willing to take this fiscal stupidity to the ballot box, the status quo will remain and higher education will face financial Armageddon.