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[Note: This material is copyright by the Des Moines Register, and is reproduced here as a matter of "fair use" for non-commercial, educational purposes only. Any other use may require the prior approval of the Des Moines Register.]

"Help! Public higher ed in peril! Low-income students screwed. Medicaid and prisons chewing up all the money. No, we can't balance the budget with more research and out-of-state tuitions because the other 49 states have that same plan. Only candidates willing to lead with concrete ideas apply."

I write from beyond the grave, from another public regents wipeout, in Hawaii, where I was CFO of that 45,000-student system. Different plotlines than Iowa, but the same cause. Refusal of everyone - regents, administrators, legislators, the congressional delegation, the governor - to face the real trouble.

The Big One: Independent and unrelated decisions that we, the people, have condoned as U.S. citizens add up to shutting off public higher education, starting with the poor. The pot has long since boiled over for community colleges and state schools. The scalding is hitting U of I, a flagship university. No state is far behind. Iowa has a chance to call the question and serve the entire nation.

Federal Medicaid cutbacks to the states force strapped legislatures to decide between medical care or education. State universities all act as though that's the problem in the other states. "We'll make it with higher salaries to attract top talent; a fund drive; pulling in more research dollars; and thousands of students paying out-of-state tuition."

Most egregious is how higher education excels at crying poor while excluding from public debate billions of dollars in subsidies from federal tax policies and federal research funding. The National Association of College and University Business Officers, the CFO trade group, has appointed itself as justifier of this mess. For example, there are no discussions of how federal tax policy on donations and endowments subsidizes each Grinnell College student by at least $25,000 per year, or, about four in-state U of I tuitions. Why?

Iowa is following the usual pattern: Local squabbling is easier than facing the situation. No one has the answers. What's missing from our own educations is the ability, as adults and leaders, to admit that we confront an overwhelming, intractable problem. We reach for quick answers and prefer quicker blame.

Iowa, alone, has at least three remarkable opportunities.

- This presidential search at the U of I. Call the question. The game in the United States favors strong institutions. No one is accountable for who's not being educated. Make the new U of I president accountable, with others, for seeing that every Iowan has solid skills for a 21st-century career.

- On Dec. 5, U.S. Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa and his Finance Committee hold hearings on the abuse of nonprofit status by private colleges and many university foundations. His questions are too narrow. The committee must call in the chair of the Grinnell trustees and the board chairs of the Ivy League. Ask them to justify their tax status in light of Iowans who can't afford school at all. This will take senatorial courage. Senator Grassley, I imagine, knows that the tobacco and the gun lobbies combined couldn't beat the higher-education lobbies.

- The 2008 Iowa caucuses. Today, Iowa leaders can craft a consistent set of federal policies that ensure education for low-income students and end the state-to-state, cannibalizing actions of federal lobbying and earmarking. Let presidential candidates know now that they won't leave Iowa without solid plans for the nation.

One more: In Hawaii, I, too, fell for the glamorous medical-school sideshow. Try this in your ad: P.S. Until every Iowan has basic skills for a 21st century career, preferably in Iowa, please show us how to slip the medical school over to Illinois.
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WICK SLOANE of Cambridge, Mass., is former chief financial officer of the University of Hawaii System.

Read Wick Sloane's column pitching his own, different kind of application for the U of I presidency at  www.insidehighered.com.

Also read his essay "U.S. Tax Policy, Research Grants and Higher Education - The Undebated Billions" at the Web site of The Center for College Affordability and Productivity, www.collegeaffordability. net/perspectives.php.

Contact him at wsloane[at] well.com.